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THE 
HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 


BY 
EDWARD    EGGLESTON 


This  book*  while  produced  under 
wartime  conditions,  in  full  com 
pliance  with  government  regula 
tions  for  t  he  conserva  tion  of  paper 
and  other  essential  materials,  is 
COMPLETE  AND  UNABRIDGED 


GROSSET   &   DUNLAP 

PUBLISHERS  NEW   YORK 

By  arrangement  with  Charles  Scribner's  Sons 


COPYRIGHT,  1883,  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

COPYRIGHT,  1910,  BY 
FRANCES  G.  EGGLESTON 

Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


All  rights  reserved.  No  part  of  this  book 
may  be  reproduced  in  any  form  without 
the  permission  of  Charles  Scribner's  Sons 


r  j  ^ 
H 


In  compliance  with  current  copyright 

law,  U.  C.  Library  Bindery  produced 

this  replacement  volume  on  paper 

that  meets  the  ANSI  Standard  Z39.48- 

1984  to  replace  the  irreparably 

deteriorated  original 

1995 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  THE  NEW  SCHOLAR 3 

n.  KING  MILKMAID 15 

HI.  ANSWERING  BACK 23 

IV.  LITTLE  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS       .     .  34 

V.  WHILING  AWAY  TIME 43 

VI.  A  BATTLE 48 

VH.  HAT-BALL  AND  BULL-PEN      ....  58 

VOX  THE  DEFENDER 70 

IX.  PIGEON  POT-PIE 80 

X.  JACK  AND  His  MOTHER 97 

XI.  COLUMBUS  AND  His  FRIENDS      .     .     .  102 

XH.  GREENBANK  WAKES  UP 113 

XHI.  PROFESSOR  SUSAN 119 

XTV.  CROWING  AFTER  VICTORY      .     .     .     .  127 

XV.  AN  ATTEMPT  TO  COLLECT      ....  137 


ivi72S  1 45 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PACK 

XVI.  AN  EXPLORING  EXPEDITION     .     .     .  148 

XVII.  HOUSEKEEPING  EXPERIENCES  .     .     .  154 

XVIII.    GHOSTS 166 

XIX.    THE  RETURN  HOME 177 

XX.  A  FOOT-RACE  FOR  MONEY      .     .     .  189 

XXI.    THE  NEW  TEACHER 203 

XXII.    CHASING  THE  Fox 210 

XXIII.  CALLED  TO  ACCOUNT 222 

XXIV.  AN  APOLOGY  ........  229 

XXV.  KING'S  BASE  AND  A  SPELLING-LESSON  238 

XXVI.  UNCLAIMED  TOP-STRINGS     ....  243 

XXVII.  THE  LAST  DAY  OF  SCHOOL,  AND  THE 

LAST  CHAPTER  OF  THE  STORY  .     .  252 


VI 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  NEW  SCHOLAR 

WHILE  the  larger  boys  in  the  village 
school  of  Greenbank  were  having  a  game 
of  "three  old  cat"  before  school-time,  there 
appeared  on  the  playground  a  strange  boy, 
carrying  two  books,  a  slate,  and  an  atlas 
under  his  arm. 

He  was  evidently  from  the  country,  for 
he  wore  a  suit  of  brown  jeans,  or  woollen 
homespun,  made  up  in  the  natural  color  of 
the  "black"  sheep,  as  we  call  it.  He  shyly 
sidled  up  to  the  school-house  door,  and 
looked  doubtfully  at  the  boys  who  were 
playing;  watching  the  familiar  game  as 
though  he  had  never  seen  it  before. 

The  boys  who  had  the  "paddles"  were 
standing  on  three  bases,  while  three  others 

3 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

stood  each  behind  a  base  and  tossed  the 
ball  around  the  triangle  from  one  hole  or 
base  to  another.  The  new-comer  soon  per 
ceived  that,  if  one  with  a  paddle,  or  bat, 
struck  at  the  ball  and  missed  it,  and  the 
ball  was  caught  directly,  or  "at  the  first 
bounce,"  he  gave  up  his  bat  to  the  one  who 
had  "caught  him  out."  When  the  ball  was 
struck,  it  was  called  a  "tick,"  and  when 
there  was  a  tick,  all  the  batters  were  obliged 
to  run  one  base  to  the  left,  and  then  the 
ball  thrown  between  a  batter  and  the 
base  to  which  he  was  running  "crossed  him 
out,"  and  obliged  him  to  give  up  his  "pad 
dle"  to  the  one  who  threw  the  ball. 

"Four  old  cat,"  "two  old  cat,"  and  "five 
old  cat"  are,  as  everybody  knows,  played 
in  the  same  way,  the  number  of  bases  or 
holes  increasing  with  the  addition  of  each 
pair  of  players. 

It  is  probable  that  the  game  was  once — 
4 


THE  NEW  SCHOLAR 

some  hundreds  of  years  ago,  maybe — called 
"three  hole  catch,"  and  that  the  name  was 
gradually  corrupted  into  "three  hole  cat," 
as  it  is  still  called  in  the  interior  States, 
and  then  became  changed  by  mistake  to 
"three  old  cat."  It  is,  no  doubt,  an  early 
form  of  our  present  game  of  base-ball. 

It  was  this  game  which  the  new  boy 
watched,  trying  to  get  an  inkling  of  how 
it  was  played.  He  stood  by  the  school- 
house  door,  and  the  girls  who  came  in  were 
obliged  to  pass  near  him.  Each  of  them 
stopped  to  scrape  her  shoes,  or  rather  the 
girls  remembered  the  foot-scraper  because 
they  were  curious  to  see  the  new-comer. 
They  cast  furtive  glances  at  him,  noting 
his  new  suit  of  brown  clothes,  his  geogra 
phy  and  atlas,  his  arithmetic,  and,  last  of 
all,  his  face. 

"There's  a  new  scholar,"  said  Peter  Rose, 
or,  as  he  was  called,  "Pewee"  Rose,  a 

5 


THE  HOOSIER   SCHOOL-BOY 

stout  and  stocky  boy  of  fourteen,  who  had 
just  been  caught  out  by  another. 

"I  say,  Greeny,  how  did  you  get  so 
brown?"  called  out  Will  Riley,  a  rather 
large,  loose- jointed  fellow. 

Of  course,  all  the  boys  laughed  at  this. 
Boys  will  sometimes  laugh  at  any  one  suf 
fering  torture,  whether  the  victim  be  a 
persecuted  cat  or  a  persecuted  boy.  The 
new  boy  made  no  answer,  but  Joanna  Mer- 
win,  who,  just  at  that  moment,  happened 
to  be  scraping  her  shoes,  saw  that  he  grew 
red  in  the  face  with  a  quick  flush  of  an 
ger. 

"Don't  stand  there,  Greeny,  or  the 
cows'U  eat  you  up!"  called  Riley,  as  he 
came  round  again  to  the  base  nearest  to 
the  school-house. 

Why  the  ,boys  should  have  been  amused 
at  this  speech,  the  new  scholar  could  not 
tell — the  joke  was  neither  new  nor  witty — 

6 


THE  NEW  SCHOLAR 

only  impudent  and  coarse.  But  the  little 
boys  about  the  door  giggled. 

"  It's  a  pity  something  wouldn't  eat  you, 
Will  Riley — you  are  good  for  nothing  but 
to  be  mean/'  This  sharp  speech  came 
from  a  rather  tall  and  graceful  girl  of  six 
teen,  who  came  up  at  the  time,  and  who 
saw  the  annoyance  of  the  new  boy  at 
Riley's  insulting  words.  Of  course  the 
boys  laughed  again.  It  was  rare  sport  to 
hear  pretty  Susan  Lanham  "take  down" 
the  impudent  Riley. 

"The  bees  will  never  eat  you  for  honey, 
Susan,"  said  Will. 

Susan  met  the  titter  of  the  playground 
with  a  quick  flush  of  temper  and  a  fine 
look  of  scorn. 

"Nothing  would  eat  you,  Will,  unless, 
maybe,  a  turkey-buzzard,  and  a  very  hun 
gry  one  at  that." 

This  sharp  retort  was  uttered  with  a 
7 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

merry  laugh  of  ridicule,  and  a  graceful  toss 
of  the  head,  as  the  mischievous  girl  passed 
into  the  school-house. 

"That  settles  you,  Will,"  said  Pewee 
Rose.  And  Bob  Holliday  began  singing, 
to  a  doleful  tune: 

"Poor  old  Pidy, 
She  died  last  Friday." 

Just  then,  the  stern  face  of  Mr.  Ball,  the 
master,  appeared  at  the  door;  he  rapped 
sharply  with  his  ferule,  and  called:  "Books, 
books,  books!"  The  bats  were  dropped, 
and  the  boys  and  girls  began  streaming 
into  the  school,  but  some  of  the  boys  man 
aged  to  nudge  Riley,  saying: 

"Poor  old  creetur, 
The  turkey-buzzards  eat  her," 

and  such  like  soft  and  sweet  speeches. 
Riley  was  vexed  and  angry,  but  nobody 
was  afraid  of  him,  for  a  boy  may  be  both 
big  and  mean  and  yet  lack  courage. 

8 


THii   NEW  SCHOLAR 

The  new  boy  did  not  go  in  at  once,  but 
stood  silently  and  faced  the  inquiring  looks 
of  the  procession  of  boys  as  they  filed  into 
the  school-room  with  their  faces  flushed 
from  the  exercise  and  excitement  of  the 
games. 

"I  can  thrash  him  easy/'  thought  Pewee 
Rose. 

"He  isn't  a  fellow  to  back  down  easily," 
said  Harvey  Collins  to  his  next  neighbor. 

Only  good-natured,  rough  Bob  Holliday 
stopped  and  spoke  to  the  newcomer  a 
friendly  word.  All  that  he  said  was  "  Hel 
lo  !"  But  how  much  a  boy  can  put  into 
that  word  "Hello!"  Bob  put  his  whole 
heart  into  it,  and  there  was  no  boy  in  the 
school  that  had  a  bigger  heart,  a  bigger 
hand,  or  half  so  big  a  foot  as  Bob  Holliday. 
s  The  village  school-house  was  a  long  one 
built  of  red  brick.  It  had  taken  the  place 
of  the  old  log  institution  in  which  one  gen- 

9 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

eration  of  Greenbank  children  had  learned 
reading,  writing,  and  Webster's  spelling- 
book.  There  were  long,  continuous  writ 
ing-tables  down  the  sides  of  the  room,  with 
backless  benches,  so  arranged  that  when 
the  pupil  was  writing  his  face  was  turned 
toward  the  wall — there  was  a  door  at  each 
end,  and  a  box  stove  stood  in  the  middle 
of  the  room,  surrounded  by  a  rectangle  of 
four  backless  benches.  These  benches  were 
for  the  little  fellows  who  did  not  write,  and 
for  others  when  the  cold  should  drive  them 
nearer  the  stove. 

The  very  worshipful  master  sat  at  the 
east  end  of  the  room,  at  one  side  of  the 
door;  there  was  a  blackboard — a  "new 
fangled  notion "  in  1850 — at  the  other  side 
of  the  door.  Some  of  the  older  scholars, 
who  could  afford  private  desks  with  lids  to 
them,  suitable  for  concealing  smuggled  ap 
ples  and  maple-sugar,  had  places  at  the 
other  end  of  the  room  from  the  master. 
10 


THE  NEW  SCHOLAR 

This  arrangement  was  convenient  for  quiet 
study,  for  talking  on  the  fingers  by  signs, 
for  munching  apples  or  gingerbread,  and 
for  passing  little  notes  between  the  boys 
and  girls. 

When  the  school  had  settled  a  little,  the 
master  struck  a  sharp  blow  on  his  desk  for 
silence,  and  looked  fiercely  around  the 
room,  eager  to  find  a  culprit  on  whom  to 
wreak  his  ill-humor.  Mr.  Ball  was  one  of 
those  old-fashioned  teachers  who  gave  the 
impression  that  he  would  rather  beat  a 
boy  than  not,  and  would  even  like  to  eat 
one,  if  he  could  find  a  good  excuse.  His 
eye  lit  upon  the  new  scholar. 

"Come  here/'  he  said,  severely,  and  then 
he  took  his  seat. 

The  new  boy  walked  timidly  up  to  a 
place  in  front  of  the  master's  desk.  He 
was  not  handsome,  his  face  was  thin,  his 
eyebrows  were  prominent,  his  mouth  was 
rather  large  and  good-humored,  and  there 

11 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

was  that  shy  twinkle  about  the  corners  of 
his  eyes  which  always  marks  a  fun-loving 
spirit.  But  his  was  a  serious,  fine-grained 
face,  with  marks  of  suffering  in  it,  and  he 
had  the  air  of  having  been  once  a  strong 
fellow;  of  late,  evidently,  shaken  to  pieces 
by  the  ague. 

"  Where  do  you  live  ?  "  demanded  Mr.  Ball. 

"On  Ferry  Street/' 

"What  do  they  call  you?"  This  was 
said  with  a  contemptuous,  rasping  inflection 
that  irritated  the  new  scholar.  His  eyes 
twinkled,  partly  with  annoyance  and  partly 
with  mischief. 

"They  call  me  Jack,  for  the  most  part," 
— then  catching  the  titter  that  came  from 
the  girls'  side  of  the  room,  and  frightened 
by  the  rising  hurricane  on  the  master's 
face,  he  added  quickly:  "My  name  is  John 
Dudley,  sir." 

"Don't  you  try  to  show  your  smartness 
12 


THE  NEW  SCHOLAR 

on  me,  young  man.  You  are  a  new-comer, 
and  I  let  you  off  this  time.  Answer  me 
that  way  again,  and  you  will  remember  it 
as  long  as  you  live."  And  the  master 
glared  at  him  like  a  savage  bull  about  to 
toss  somebody  over  a  fence. 

The  new  boy  turned  pale,  and  dropped 
his   head. 

"How  old  are  you?"    "Thirteen." 

"Have  you  ever  been  to  school?" 

"Three  months." 

"Three  months.    Do  you  know  how  to 
read?" 

"Yes,  sir,"  with  a  smile. 

"Can  you  cipher?"    "Yes,  sir." 

"  In  multiplication  ?  "    "  Yes,  sir." 

"Long  division?" 

"Yes,  sir;  I've  been  half  through  frac 
tions." 

"You  said  you'd  been  to  school  but  three 
months ! "     "My  father  taught  me." 

13 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

There  was  just  a  touch  of  pride  in  his 
voice  as  he  said  this — a  sense  of  something 
superior  about  his  father.  This  bit  of  pride 
angered  the  master,  who  liked  to  be  thought 
to  have  a  monopoly  of  all  the  knowledge  in 
the  town. 

"Where  have  you  been  living?" 

"In  the  Indian  Reserve,  of  late;  I  was 
born  in  Cincinnati." 

"  I  didn't  ask  you  where  you  were  born. 
When  I  ask  you  a  question,  answer  that 
and  no  more." 

"Yes,  sir."  There  was  a  touch  of  some 
thing  in  the  tone  of  this  reply  that  amused 
the  school,  and  that  made  the  master  look 
up  quickly  and  suspiciously  at  Jack  Dud 
ley,  but  the  expression  on  Jack's  face  was 
as  innocent  as  that  of  a  cat  who  has  just 
lapped  the  cream  off  the  milk. 


14 


CHAPTER  II 

KING  MILKMAID 

PEWEE  ROSE,  whose  proper  name  was 
Peter  Rose,  had  also  the  nickname  of  King 
Pewee.  He  was  about  fourteen  years  old, 
square  built  and  active,  of  great  strength 
for  his  size,  and  very  proud  of  the  fact  that 
no  boy  in  town  cared  to  attack  him.  He 
was  not  bad-tempered,  but  he  loved  to  be 
master,  and  there  were  a  set  of  flatterers 
who  followed  him,  like  jackals  about  a  lion. 

As  often  happens,  Nature  had  built  for 
King  Pewee  a  very  fine  body,  but  had  for 
gotten  to  give  him  any  mind  to  speak  of. 
In  any  kind  of  chaff  or  banter,  at  any  sort 
of  talk  or  play  where  a  good  head  was 
worth  more  than  a  strong  arm  and  a  broad 
back.  King  Pawae  was  sure  to  have  the 

15 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

worst  of  it.  A  very  convenient  partnership 
had  therefore  grown  up  between  him  and 
Will  Riley.  Riley  had  muscle  enough,  but 
Nature  had  made  him  mean-spirited.  He 
had — not  exactly  wit — but  a  facility  for 
using  his  tongue,  which  he  found  some 
difficulty  in  displaying,  through  fear  of 
other  boys*  fists.  By  forming  a  friendship 
with  Pewee  Rose,  the  two  managed  to  keep 
in  fear  the  greater  part  of  the  school.  Will's 
rough  tongue,  together  with  Pewee's  rude 
fists,  were  enough  to  bully  almost  any  boy. 
They  let  Harvey  Collins  alone,  because  he 
was  older,  and,  keeping  to  himself,  awed 
them  by  his  dignity;  good-natured  Bob 
Holliday,  also,  was  big  enough  to  take  care 
of  himself.  But  the  rest  were  all  as  much 
afraid  of  Pewee  as  they  were  of  the  master, 
and  as  Riley  managed  Pewee,  it  behooved 
them  to  be  afraid  of  the  prime  minister, 
Riley,  as  well  as  of  King  Pewee. 
16 


KING  MILKMAID 

From  the  first  day  that  Jack  Dudley 
entered  the  school,  dressed  in  brown  jeans, 
Will  Riley  marked  him  for  a  victim.  The 
air  of  refinement  about  his  face  showed 
him  to  be  a  suitable  person  for  teasing. 

Riley  called  him  "milksop/*  and  " sap- 
head  ";  words  which  seemed  to  the  dull  in 
tellect  of  King  Pewee  exceedingly  witty. 
And  as  Pewee  was  Riley's  defender,  he  felt 
as  proud  of  these  rude  nicknames  as  he 
would  had  he  invented  them  and  taken  out 
a  patent. 

But  Riley's  greatest  stroke  of  wit  came 
one  morning  when  he  caught  Jack  Dudley 
milking  the  cow.  In  the  village  of  Green- 
bank,  milking  a  cow  was  regarded  as  a 
woman's  work;  and  foolish  men  and  boys 
are  like  savages, — very  much  ashamed  to 
be  found  doing  a  woman's  work.  Fools  al 
ways  think  something  else  more  disgraceful 
than  idleness.  So,  having  seen  Jack  milk- 

17 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

ing,  Riley  came  to  school  happy.  He  had 
an  arrow  to  shoot  that  would  give  great 
delight  to  the  small  boys. 

"Good-morning,  milkmaid!"  he  said  to 
Jack  Dudley,  as  he  entered  the  school- 
house  before  school.  "You  milk  the  cow 
at  your  house,  do  you?  Where's  your 
apron  ?" 

"Oh-h!  Milkmaid!  milkmaid!  That's 
a  good  one,"  chimed  in  Pewee  Rose  and  all 
his  set. 

Jack  changed  color. 

"Well,  what  if  I  do  milk  my  mother's 
cow?  I  don't  milk  anybody's  cow  but 
ours,  do  I  ?  Do  you  think  I'm  ashamed  of 
it?  I'd  be  ashamed  not  to.  I  can" — but 
he  stopped  a  minute  and  blushed — "I  can 
wash  dishes,  and  make  good  pancakes,  too. 
Now  if  you  want  to  make  fun,  why,  make 
fun.  I  don't  care."  But  he  did  care,  else 
why  should  his  voice  choke  in  that  way? 

"Oh,  girl-boy;  a  pretty  girl-boy  you 
18 


KING  MILKMAID 

are — "  but  here  Will  Riley  stopped  and 
stammered.  There  right  in  front  of  him 
was  the  smiling  face  of  Susan  Lanham, 
with  a  look  in  it  which  made  him  suddenly 
remember  something.  Susan  had  heard  all 
the  conversation,  and  now  she  came  around 
in  front  of  Will,  while  all  the  other  girls 
clustered  about  her  with  a  vague  expecta 
tion  of  sport. 

"Come,  Pewee,  let's  play  ball,"  said  Will. 

"Ah,  you  Ye  running  away,  now;  you're 
afraid  of  a  girl,"  said  Susan,  with  a  cutting 
little  laugh,  and  a  toss  of  her  black  curls 
over  her  shoulder. 

Will  had  already  started  for  the  ball- 
ground,  but  at  this  taunt  he  turned  back, 
thrust  his  hands  into  fiis  pockets,  put  on  a 
swagger,  and  stammered:  "No,  I'm  not 
afraid  of  a  girl,  either." 

"That's  about  all  that  he  isn't  afraid  of," 
said  Bob  Holliday. 

"Oh!  you're  not  afraid  of  a  girl?"  said 
19 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

Susan.  "What  did  you  run  away  for, 
when  you  saw  me  ?  You  know  that  Pewee 
won't  fight  a  girl.  You're  afraid  of  any 
body  that  Pewee  can't  whip." 

"You've  got  an  awful  tongue,  Susan. 
We'll  call  you  Sassy  Susan/'  said  Will, 
laughing  at  his  own  joke. 

"Oh,  it  isn't  my  tongue  you're  afraid  of 
now.  You  know  I  can  tell  on  you.  I  saw 
you  drive  your  cow  into  the  stable  last 
week.  You  were  ashamed  to  milk  outside, 
but  you  looked  all  around •" 

"  I  didn't  do  it.  How  could  you  see  ?  It 
was  dark,"  and  Will  giggled  foolishly,  see 
ing  all  at  once  that  he  had  betrayed  himself. 

"It  was  nearly  dark,  but  I  happened  to 
be  where  I  could  see.  And  as  I  was  com 
ing  back,  a  few  minutes  after,  I  saw  you 
come  out  with  a  pail  of  milk,  and  look 
around  you  like  a  sneak-thief.  You  saw 
me  and  hurried  away.  You  are  such  a 
20 


KING  MILKMAID 

coward  that  you  are  ashamed  to  do  a  little 
honest  work.  Milkmaid!  Girl-boy!  Cow 
ard  5  And  Pewee  Rose  lets  you  lead  him 
around  by  the  nose !" 

"You'd  better  be  careful  what  you  say, 
Susan/'  said  Pewee,  threateningly. 

"You  won't  touch  me.  You  go  about 
bullying  little  boys,  and  calling  yourself 
King  Pewee,  but  you  can't  do  a  sum  in 
long  division,  nor  in  short  subtraction,  for 
that  matter,  and  you  let  fellows  like  Riley 
make  a  fool  of  you.  Your  father's  poor, 
and  your  mother  can't  keep  a  girl,  and  you 
ought  to  be  ashamed  to  let  her  milk  the 
cows.  Who  milked  your  cow  this  morning, 
Pewee?" 

"I  don't  know,"  said  the  king,  looking 
like  the  king's  fool. 

"You  did  it,"  said  Susan.  "Don't  deny 
it.  Then  you  come  here  and  call  a  strange 
boy  a  milkmaid!" 

21 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

"Well,  I  didn't  milk  in  the  street,  any 
way,  and  he  did."  At  this,  all  laughed 
aloud,  and  Susan's  victory  was  complete. 
She  only  said,  with  a  pretty  toss  of  her  head, 
as  she  turned  away:  "King  Milkmaid !" 

Pewee  found  the  nickname  likely  to  stick. 
He  was  obliged  to  declare  on  the  playground 
the  next  day,  that  he  would  "thrash"  any 
boy  that  said  anything  about  milkmaids. 
After  that,  he  heard  no  more  of  it.  But 
one  morning  he  found  "King  Milkmaid" 
written  on  the  door  of  his  father's  cow- 
stable.  Some  boy  who  dared  not  attack 
Pewee,  had  vented  his  irritation  by  writing 
the  hateful  words  on  the  stable,  and  on  the 
fence-corners  near  the  school-house,  and 
even  on  the  blackboard. 

Pewee  could  not  fight  with  Susan  Lan- 

ham,  but  he  made  up  his  mind  to  punish 

the  new  scholar  when  he  should  have  a 

chance.    He  must  give  somebody  a  beating. 

22 


CHAPTER  III 

ANSWERING  BACK 

IT  is  hard  for  one  boy  to  make  a  fight. 
Even  your  bully  does  not  like  to  "pitch 
on"  an  inoffensive  schoolmate.  You  re 
member  ^Esop's  fable  of  the  wolf  and  the 
lamb,  and  what  pains  the  wolf  took  to  pick 
a  quarrel  with  the  lamb.  It  was  a  little 
hard  for  Pewee  to  fight  with  a  boy  who 
walked  quietly  to  and  from  the  school, 
without  giving  anybody  cause  for  offence. 

But  the  chief  reason  why  Pewee  did  not 
attack  him  with  his  fists  was  that  both  he 
and  Riley  had  found  out  that  Jack  Dudley 
could  help  them  over  a  hard  place  in  their 
lessons  better  than  anybody  else.  And 
notwithstanding  their  continual  persecu 
tion  of  Jack,  they  were  mean  enough  to 

23 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

ask  his  assistance,  and  he,  hoping  to  bring 
about  peace  by  good-nature,  helped  them 
to  get  out  their  geography  and  arithmetic 
almost  every  day.  Unable  to  appreciate 
this,  they  were  both  convinced  that  Jack 
only  did  it  because  he  was  afraid  of  them, 
and  as  they  found  it  rare  sport  to  abuse 
him,  they  kept  it  up.  By  their  influence 
Jack  was  shut  out  of  the  plays.  A  green 
horn  would  spoil  the  game,  they  said. 
What  did  a  boy  that  had  lived  on  Wildcat 
Creek,  in  the  Indian  Reserve,  know  about 
playing  bull-pen,  or  prisoner's  base,  or 
shinny  ?  If  he  was  brought  in,  they  would 
go  out. 

But  the  girls,  and  the  small  boys,  and 
good-hearted  Bob  Holliday  liked  Jack's 
company  very  much.  Yet,  Jack  was  a  boy, 
and  he  often  longed  to  play  games  with  the 
others.  He  felt  very  sure  that  he  could 
dodge  and  run  in  "bull-pen''  as  well  as 
24 


ANSWERING  BACK 

any  of  them.  He  was  very  tired  of  Riley's 
continual  ridicule,  which  grew  worse  as 
Riley  saw  in  him  a  rival  in  influence  with 
the  smaller  boys. 

"Catch  Will  alone  sometimes/'  said  Bob 
Holliday,  "when  Pewee  isn't  with  him,  and 
then  thrash  him.  He'll  back  right  down  if 
you  bristle  up  to  him.  If  Pewee  makes  a 
fuss  about  it,  I'll  look  after  Pewee.  I'm 
bigger  than  he  is,  and  he  won't  fight  with 
me.  What  do  you  say?" 

"I  sha'n't  fight  unless  I  have  to." 

"Afraid?"  asked  Bob,  laughing. 

"It  isn't  that.  I  don't  think  I'm  much 
afraid,  although  I  don't  like  to  be  pounded 
or  to  pound  anybody.  I  think  I'd  rather 
be  whipped  than  to  be  made  fun  of,  though. 
But  my  father  used  to  say  that  people  who 
fight  generally  do  so  because  they  are  afraid 
of  somebody  else,  more  than  they  are  of 
the  one  they  fight  with." 

25 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

"I  believe  that's  a  fact,"  said  Bob. 
"But  Riley  aches  for  a  good  thrashing." 

"I  know  that,  and  I  feel  like  giving  him 
one,  or  taking  one  myself,  and  I  think  I 
shall  fight  him  before  I've  done.  But 
father  used  to  say  that  fists  could  never 
settle  between  right  and  wrong.  They  only 
show  which  is  the  stronger,  and  it  is  gener 
ally  the  mean  one  that  gets  the  best  of  it." 

"That's  as  sure  as  shootin',"  said  Bob. 
"Pewee  could  use  you  up.  Pewee  thinks 
he's  the  king,  but  laws!  he's  only  Riley's 
bull-dog.  Riley  is  afraid  of  him,  but  he 
manages  to  keep  the  dog  on  his  side  all  the 
time." 

"My  father  used  to  say,"  said  Jack, 
"that  brutes  could  fight  with  force,  but 
men  ought  to  use  their  wits." 

"You  seem  to  think  a  good  deal  of  what 
your  father  says, — like  it  was  your  Bible, 
you  know." 

26 


ANSWERING  BACK 

"My  father's  dead/'  replied  Jack. 

"Oh,  that's  why.  Boys  don't  always 
pay  attention  to  what  their  father  says 
when  he's  alive." 

"Oh,  but  then  my  father  "was — "  Here 
Jack  checked  himself,  for  fear  of  seeming 
to  boast.  "You  see,"  he  went  on,  "my 
father  knew  a  great  deal.  He  was  so 
busy  with  his  books  that  he  lost  'most  all 
his  money,  and  then  we  moved  to  the 
Indian  Reserve,  and  there  he  took  the  fever 
and  died;  and  then  we  came  down  here, 
where  we  owned  a  house,  so  that  I  could 
go  to  school." 

"Why  don't  you  give  Will  Riley  as  good 
as  he  sends?"  said  Bob,  wishing  to  get 
away  from  melancholy  subjects.  "You 
have  got  as  good  a  tongue  as  his." 

"I  haven't  his  stock  of  bad  words, 
though." 

"You've  got  a  power  of  fun  in  you, 
27 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

though, — you  keep  everybody  laughing 
when'  you  want  to,  and  if  you'd  only  turn 
the  pumps  on  him  once,  he'd  howl  like  a 
yellow  dog  that's  had  a  quart  o'  not  suds 
poured  over  him  out  of  a  neighbor's  win 
dow.  Use  your  wits,  like  your  father  said. 
You've  lived  in  the  woods  till  you're  as 
shy  as  a  flying-squirrel.  All  you've  got  to 
do  is  to  talk  up  and  take  it  rough  and 
tumble,  like  the  rest  of  the  world.  Riley 
can't  bear  to  be  laughed  at,  and  you  can 
make  him  ridiculous  as  easy  as  not." 

The  next  day,  at  the  noon  recess,  about 
the  time  that  Jack  had  finished  helping  Bob 
Holliday  to  find  some  places  on  the  map, 
there  came  up  a  little  shower,  and  the  boys 
took  refuge  in  the  school-house.  They 
must  have  some  amusement,  so  Riley  began 
his  old  abuse. 

"Well,    greenhorn    from    the    Wildcat, 
where's  the  black   sheep   you  stole  that 
suit  of  clothes  from?" 
28 


ANSWERING  BACK 

"I  hear  him  bleat  now/'  said  Jack, — 
"about  the  blackest  sheep  I  have  ever 
seen." 

"You've  heard  the  truth  for  once,  Ri- 
ley,"  said  Bob  Holliday. 

Riley,  who  was  as  vain  as  a  peacock, 
was  very  much  mortified  by  the  shout  of 
applause  with  which  this  little  retort  of 
Jack's  was  greeted.  It  was  not  a  case  in 
which  he  could  call  in  King  Pewee.  The 
king,  for  his  part,  shut  up  his  fists  and 
looked  silly,  while  Jack  took  courage  to 
keep  up  the  battle. 

But  Riley  tried  again. 

"  I  say,  Wildcat,  you  think  you're  smart, 
but  you're  a  double-distilled  idiot,  and 
haven't  got  brains  enough  to  be  sensible  of 
your  misery." 

This  kind  of  outburst  on  Riley's  part 
always  brought  a  laugh  from  the  school. 
But  before  the  laugh  had  died  down,  Jack 

29 


THE   HOOSIER   SCHOOL-BOY 

Dudley  took  the  word,  saying,  in  a  dry  and 
quizzical  way: 

"Don't  you  try  to  claim  kin  with  me 
that  way,  Riley.  No  use;  I  won't  stand  it. 
I  don't  belong  to  your  family.  I'm  neither 
a  fool  nor  a  coward." 

"Hurrah !"  shouted  Bob  Holliday,  bring 
ing  down  first  one  and  then  the  other  of 
his  big  feet  on  the  flo^r.  "It's  your  put- 
in  now,  Riley." 

"Don't  be  backward  in  coming  forward, 
Will,  as  the  Irish  priest  said  to  his  people," 
came  from  grave  Harvey  Collins,  who  here 
looked  up  from  his  book,  thoroughly  enjoy 
ing  the  bully's  discomfiture. 

"That's  awfully  good,"  said  Joanna  Mer- 
win,  clasping  her  hands  and  giggling  with 
delight. 

King  Pewee  doubled  up  his  fists  and 
looked  at  Riley  to  see  if  he  ought  to  try 
his  sort  of  wit  on  Jack.  If  a  frog,  being 
30 


ANSWERING  BACK 

pelted  to  death  by  cruel  boys,  should  turn 
and  pelt  them  again,  they  could  not  be 
more  surprised  than  were  Riley  and  King 
Pewee  at  Jack's  repartees. 

"You'd  better  be  careful  what  you  say 
to  Will  Riley,"  said  Pewee.  "I  stand  by 
him." 

But  Jack's  blood  was  up  now,  and  he 
was  not  to  be  scared. 

"All  the  more  shame  to  him/'  said  Jack. 
"Look  at  me,  shaken  all  to  pieces  with  the 
fever  and  ague  on  the  Wildcat,  and  look 
at  that  great  big,  bony  coward  of  a  Riley. 
I've  done  him  no  harm,  but  he  wants 
to  abuse  me,  and  he's  afraid  of  me.  He 
daren't  touch  me.  He  has  to  coax  you  to 
stand  by  him,  to  protect  him  from  poor 
little  me.  He's  a  great  big " 

"Calf,"  broke  in  Bob  Holliday,  with  a 
laugh. 

"You'd  better  be  careful,"  said  Pewee  to 
31 


THE  HOOSIER   SCHOOL-BOY 

Jack,  rising  to  his  feet.  "I  stand  by 
Riley." 

"Will  you  defend  him  if  I  hit  him?" 

"Yes." 

"Well,  then,  I  won't  hit  him.  But  you 
don't  mean  that  he  is  to  abuse  me,  while 
I  am  not  allowed  to  answer  back  a 
word?" 

"Well—  '  said  Pewee  hesitatingly. 

"Well,"  said  Bob  Holliday  hotly,  "I  say 
that  Jack  has  just  as  good  a  right  to  talk 
with  his  tongue  as  Riley.  Stand  by  Riley 
if  he's  hit,  Pewee;  he  needs  it.  But  don't 
you  try  to  shut  up  Jack."  And  Bob  got 
up  and  put  his  broad  hand  on  Jack's 
shoulder.  Nobody  had  ever  seen  the  big 
fellow  angry  before,  and  the  excitement 
was  very  great.  The  girls  clapped  their 
hands. 

"Good  for  you,  Bob,  I  say,"  came  from 
Susan  Lanham,  and  poor,  ungainly  Bob 
32 


ANSWERING  BACK 

blushed  to  his  hair  to  find  himself  the  hero 
of  the  girls. 

"I  don't  mean  to  shut  up  Jack/'  said 
Pewee,  looking  at  Bob's  size,  "but  I  stand 
by  Riley." 

"Well,  do  your  standing  sitting  down, 
then,"  said  Susan.  "I'll  get  a  milking- 
stool  for  you,  if  that'll  keep  you  quiet." 

It  was  well  that  the  master  came  in  just 
then,  or  Pewee  would  have  had  to  fight 
somebody  or  burst. 


33 


CHAPTER  IV 

LITTLE  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS 

JACK'S  life  in  school  was  much  more 
endurable  now  that  he  had  a  friend  in  Bob 
Holliday.  Bob  had  spent  his  time  in  hard 
work  and  in  rough  surroundings,  but  he 
had  a  gentleman's  soul,  although  his  man 
ners  and  speech  were  rude.  More  and 
more  Jack  found  himself  drawn  to  him. 
Harvey  Collins  asked  Jack  to  walk  down 
to  the  river-bank  with  him  at  recess.  Both 
Harvey  and  Bob  soon  liked  Jack,  who  found 
himself  no  longer  lonely.  The  girls  also 
sought  his  advice  about  their  lessons,  and 
the  younger  boys  were  inclined  to  come 
over  to  his  side. 

As  winter  came  on,  country  boys,  anxious 
to  learn  something  about  "reading,  writ- 
34 


LITTLE  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS 

ing,  and  ciphering/'  came  into  the  school. 
Each  of  these  new-comers  had  to  go  through 
a  certain  amount  of  teasing  from  Riley  and 
of  bullying  from  Pewee. 

One  frosty  morning  in  December  there 
appeared  among  the  new  scholars  a  strange 
little  fellow,  with  a  large  head,  long  straight 
hair,  an  emaciated  body,  and  legs  that 
looked  like  reeds,  they  were  so  slender. 
His  clothes  were  worn  and  patched,  and  he 
had  the  look  of  having  been  frost-bitten. 
He  could  not  have  been  more  than  ten 
years  old,  to  judge  by  his  size,  but  there 
was  a  look  of  premature  oldness  in  his  face. 

"Come  here!"  said  the  master,  when  he 
caught  sight  of  him.  "What  is  your 
name?"  And  Mr.  Ball  took  out  his  book 
to  register  the  new-comer,  with  much  the 
same  relish  that  the  Giant  Despair  showed 
when  he  had  bagged  a  fresh  pilgrim. 

"Columbus  Risdale."     The  new-comer 
35 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

spoke  in  a  shrill,  piping  voice,  as  strange  as 
his  weird  face  and  withered  body. 

"Is  that  your  full  name?"  asked  the 
master. 

"No,  sir,"  piped  the  strange  little  crea 
ture. 

"Give  your  full  name,"  said  Mr.  Ball, 
sternly. 

"My  name  is  Christopher  Columbus 
George  Washington  Marquis  de  Lafayette 
Risdale."  The  poor  lad  was  the  victim  of 
that  mania  which  some  people  have  for 
"naming  after"  great  men.  His  little 
shrunken  body  and  high,  piping  voice  made 
his  name  seem  so  incongruous  that  all  the 
school  tittered,  and  many  laughed  out 
right.  But  the  dignified  and  eccentric  lit 
tle  fellow  did  not  observe  it. 

"Can  you  read?" 

"Yes,  sir,"  squeaked  the  lad,  more 
shiilly  than  ever. 

36 


LITTLE  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS 

"Umph,"  said  the  master,  with  a  look 
of  doubt  on  his  face.  "  In  the  first  reader  ?  " 

"No,  sir;  in  the  fourth  reader/' 

Even  the  master  could  not  conceal  his 
look  of  astonishment  at  this  claim.  At 
that  day,  the  fourth  reader  class  was  the 
highest  in  the  school,  and  contained  only 
the  largest  scholars.  The  school  laughed 
at  the  bare  notion  of  little  Christopher 
Columbus  reading  in  the  fourth  reader, 
and  the  little  fellow  looked  around  the 
room,  puzzled  to  guess  the  cause  of  the 
merriment. 

"We'll  try  you/'  said  the  master,  with 
suspicion.  When  the  fourth-reader  class 
was  called,  and  Harvey  Collins  ^nd  Susie 
Lanham  and  some  others  of  the  nearly 
grown-up  pupils  came  forward,  with  Jack 
Dudley  as  quite  the  youngest  of  the  class, 
the  great-eyed,  emaciated  little  Columbus 
Risdale  picked  himself  up  on  his  pipe- 

37 


THE  HOOSEER  SCHOOL-BOY 

stems  and  took  his  place  at  the  end  of  this 

row. 

* 

It  was  too  funny  for  anything ! 

Will  Riley  and  Pewee  and  other  large 
scholars,  who  were  yet  reading  in  that  old 
McGuffey's  Third  Reader,  which  had  a 
solitary  picture  of  Bonaparte  crossing  the 
Alps,  looked  with  no  kindly  eyes  on  this 
preposterous  infant  in  the  class  ahead  of 
them. 

The  piece  to  be  read  was  the  poem  of 
Mrs.  Hemans's  called  "The  Better  Land/' 
Poems  like  this  one  are  rather  out  of  fashion 
nowadays,  and  people  are  inclined  to  laugh 
a  little  at  Mrs.  Remans.  But  thii  ly  years 
ago  her  religious  and  sentimental  poetry 
was  greatly  esteemed.  This  one  presented 
no  difficulty  to  the  readers.  In  that  day, 
little  or  no  attention  was  paid  to  inflection 
— the  main  endeavor  being  to  pronounce 
the  words  without  hesitation  or  slip,  and 
38 


LITTLE   CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS 

to  "mind  the  stops/'    Each  one  of  the 
class  read  a  stanza  ending  with  a  line: 

"Not  there,  not  there,  my  child !" 

The  poem  was  exhausted  before  all  had 
read,  so  that  it  was  necessary  to  begin 
over  again  in  order  to  give  each  one  his 
turn.  All  waited  to  hear  the  little  Colum 
bus  read.  When  it  came  his  turn,  the 
school  was  as  still  as  death.  The  master, 
wishing  to  test  him,  told  him,  with  some 
thing  like  a  sneer,  that  he  could  read  three 
stanzas,  or  "verses/*  as  Mr.  Ball  called 
them. 

The  little  chap  squared  his  toes,  threw 
his  head  back,  and  more  fluently  even  than 
the  rest,  he  read,  in  his  shrill,  eager  voice, 
the  remaining  lines,  winding  up  each  stanza 
in  a  condescending  tone,  as  he  read: 

"Not  there,  not  there,  my  child!" 
39 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

The  effect  of  this  from  the  hundred-year- 
old  baby  was  so  striking  and  so  ludicrous 
that  everybody  was  amused,  while  all  were 
surprised  at  the  excellence  of  his  reading. 
The  master  proceeded,  however,  to  whip 
one  or  two  of  the  boys  for  laughing. 

When  recess-time  arrived,  Susan  Lanham 
came  to  Jack  with  a  request. 

"I  wish  you'd  look  after  little  Lummy 
Risdale.  He's  a  sort  of  cousin  of  my 
mother's.  He  is  as  innocent  and  helpless 
as  the  babes  in  the  wood." 

"I'll  take  care  of  him/'  said  Jack. 

So  he  took  the  little  fellow  walking  away 
from  the  school-house;  Will  Riley  and  some 
of  the  others  calling  after  them:  "Not 
there,  not  there,  my  child!" 

But  Columbus  did  not  lay  their  taunts 

to  heart.    He  was  soon  busy  talking  to 

Jack   about  things   in   the   country,    and 

things  in  town.    On  their  return,  Riley, 

40 


LITTLE  CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS 

crying  out:  "Not  there,  my  child!"  threw 
a  snow-ball  from  a  distance  of  ten  feet  and 
and  struck  the  poor  little  Christopher  Co 
lumbus  George  Washington  Lafayette  so 
severe  a  blow  as  to  throw  him  off  his  feet. 
Quick  as  a  flash,  Jack  charged  on  Riley, 
and  sent  a  snow-ball  into  his  face.  An 
instant  later  he  tripped  him  with  his  foot 
and  rolled  the  big,  scared  fellow  into  the 
snow  and  washed  his  face  well,  leaving  half 
a  snow-bank  down  his  back. 

"What  makes  you  so  savage?"  whined 
Riley.  "I  didn't  snow-ball  you."  And 
Riley  looked  around  for  Pewee,  who  was 
on  the  other  side  of  the  school-house,  and 
out  of  sight  of  the  scuffle. 

"No,  you  daren't  snow-ball  me,"  said 
Jack,  squeezing  another  ball  and  throwing 
it  into  Riley's  shirt-front  with  a  certainty 
of  aim  that  showed  that  he  knew  how  to 
play  ball.  "Take  that  one,  too,  and  if 

41 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

you  bother  Lum  Risdale  again,  I'll  make 
you  pay  for  it.  Take  a  boy  of  your  size." 
And  with  that  he  moulded  yet  another 
ball,  but  Riley  retreated  to  the  other  side 
of  the  school-house. 


42 


CHAPTER  V 

WHILING  AWAY  TIME 

EXCLUDED  from  the  plays  of  the  older 
fellows,  Jack  drew  around  him  a  circle  of 
small  boys,  who  were  always  glad  to  be 
amused  with  the  stories  of  hunting,  fishing, 
and  frontier  adventure  that 
he  had  heard  from  old  pio 
neers  on  Wildcat  Creek. 
Sometimes  he  played  "tee- 
tah-toe,  three  in  a  row," 


with  the  girls,  using  a  slate         DIAGRAM  OF 

TEE-TAH-TOE  BOARD. 

and  pencil  in  a  way  well 
known  to  all  school-children.  And  he  also 
showed  them  a  better  kind  of  "tee-tah- 
toe,"  learned  on  the  Wildcat,  and  which 
may  have  been  in  the  first  place  an  Indian 
game,  as  it  is  played  with  grains  of  Indian 

43 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

corn.  A  piece  of  board  is  grooved  with 
a  jack-knife  in  the  manner  shown  in  the 
diagram. 

One  player  has  three  red  or  yellow  grains 
of  corn,  and  the  other  an  equal  number  of 
white  ones.  The  player  who  won  the  last 
game  has  the  "go" — that  is,  he  first  puts 
down  a  grain  of  corn  at  any  place  where 
the  lines  intersect,  but  usually  in  the  mid 
dle,  as  that  is  the  best  point.  Then  the 
other  player  puts  down  one,  and  so  on 
until  all  are  down.  After  this,  the  players 
move  alternately  along  any  of  the  lines,  in 
any  direction,  to  the  next  intersection, 
provided  it  is  not  already  occupied.  The 
one  who  first  succeeds  in  getting  his  three 
grains  in  a  row  wins  the  point,  and  the 
board  is  cleared  for  a  new  start.  As  there 
are  always  three  vacant  points,  and  as  the 
rows  may  be  formed  in  any  direction  along 
any  of  the  lines,  the  game  gives  a  chance 
44 


WHILING  AWAY  TIME 

for  more  variety  of  combinations  than  one 
would  expect  from  its  appearance. 

Jack  had  also  an  arithmetical  puzzle 
which  he  had  learned  from  his  father,  and 
which  many  of  the  readers  of  this  story 
will  know,  perhaps. 

"Set  down  any  number,  without  letting 
me  know  what  it  is,"  said  he  to  Joanna 
Merwin. 

She  set  down  a  number. 

"Now  add  twelve  and  multiply  by  two/' 

"Well,  that  is  done,"  said  Joanna. 

''Divide  by  four,  subtract  half  of  the 
number  first  set  down,  and  your  answer 
will  be  six/' 

"Oh,  but  how  did  you  know  that  I  put 
down  sixty-four?"  said  Joanna. 

"I  didn't,"  said  Jack. 

"How  could  you  tell  the  answer,  then?" 

"That's  for  you  to  find  out." 

This  puzzle  excited  a  great  deal  of  curi- 
45 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

osity.  To  add  to  the  wonder  of  the  schol 
ars,  Jack  gave  each  time  a  different  number 
to  be  added  in,  and  sometimes  he  varied 
the  multiplying  and  dividing.  Harvey  Col 
lins,  who  was  of  a  studious  turn,  puzzled 
over  it  a  long  time,  and  at  last  he  found  it 
out;  but  he  did  not  tell  the  secret.  He  con 
tented  himself  with  giving  out  a  number  to 
Jack  and  telling  his  result.  To  the  rest  it 
was  quite  miraculous,  and  Riley  turned 
green  with  jealousy  when  he  found  the 
girls  and  boys  refusing  to  listen  to  his  jokes, 
but  gathering  about  Jack  to  test  his  ability 
to  "guess  the  answer,"  as  they  phrased  it. 
Riley  said  he  knew  how  it  was  done,  and 
he  was  even  foolish  enough  to  try  to  do  it, 
by  watching  the  slate-pencil,  or  by  sheer 
guessing,  but  this  only  brought  him  into 
ridicule. 

"Try  me  once,"  said  the  little  C.  C.  G.  W. 
M.  de  L.  Risdale,  and  Jack  let  Columbus 
46 


WHILING  AWAY  TIME 

set  down  a  figure  and  carry  it  through  the 
various  processes  until  he  told  him  the 
result.  Lummy  grew  excited,  pushed  his 
thin  hands  up  into  his  hair,  looked  at  his 
slate  a  minute,  and  then  squeaked  out: 

"Oh — let  me  see — yes — no — yes — Oh,  I 
see !  Your  answer  is  just  half  the  amount 
added  in,  because  you  have " 

But  here  Jack  placed  his  hand  over  Co- 
lumbus's  mouth. 

"You  can  see  through  a  pine  door,  Lum 
my,  but  you  mustn't  let  out  my  secret," 
he  said. 

But  Jack  had  a  boy's  heart  in  him,  and 
he  longed  for  some  more  boy-like  amuse 
ment. 


47 


CHAPTER  VI 

A  BATTLE 

ONE  morning,  when  Jack  proposed  to 
play  a  game  of  ball  with  the  boys,  Riley 
and  Pewee  came  up  and  entered  the  game, 
and  objected. 

"It  isn't  interesting  to  play  with  green 
horns,"  said  Will.  "If  Jack  plays,  little 
Christopher  Columbus  Andsoforth  will  want 
to  play,  too;  and  then  there'll  be  two  babies 
to  teach.  I  can't  be  always  helping  babies. 
Let  Jack  play  two-hole  cat  or  Anthony- 
over  with  the  little  fellows."  To  which 
answer  Pewee  assented,  of  course. 

That  day  at  noon  Riley  came  to  Jack, 
with  a  most  gentle  tone  and  winning  man 
ner,  and  whiningly  begged  Jack  to  show 
him  how  to  divide  770  by  14. 
48 


A  BATTLE 

"It  isn't  interesting  to  show  greenhorns," 
said  Jack,  mimicking  Riley's  tone  on  the 
playground  that  morning.  "If  I  show 
you,  Pewee  Rose  will  want  me  to  show 
him;  then  there'll  be  two  babies  to  teach. 
I  can't  be  always  helping  babies.  Go  and 
play  two-hole  cat  with  the  First-Reader 
boys." 

That  afternoon,  Mr.  Ball  had  the  satis 
faction  of  using  his  new  beech  switches  on 
both  Riley  and  Pewee,  though  indeed  Pe 
wee  did  not  deserve  to  be  punished  for  not 
getting  his  lesson.  It  was  Nature's  doing 
that  his  head,  like  a  goat's,  was  made  for 
butting  and  not  for  thinking. 

But  if  he  had  to  take  whippings  from  the 
master  and  his  father,  he  made  it  a  rule  to 
get  satisfaction  out  of  somebody  else.  If 
Jack  had  helped  him  he  wouldn't  have 
missed.  If  he  had  not  missed  his  lesson 
badly,  Mr.  Ball  would  not  have  whipped 

49 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

him.  It  would  be  inconvenient  to  whip 
Mr.  Ball  in  return,  but  Jack  would  be  easy 
to  manage,  and  as  somebody  must  be 
whipped,  it  fell  to  Jack's  lot  to  take  it. 

King  Pewee  did  not  fall  upon  his  victim 
at  the  school-house  door;  this  would  have 
insured  him  another  beating  from  the  mas 
ter.  Nor  did  he  attack  Jack  while  Bob 
Holliday  was  with  him.  Bob  was  big  and 
strong — a  great  fellow  of  sixteen.  But 
after  Jack  had  passed  the  gate  of  Bob's 
house,  and  was  walking  on  toward  home 
alone,  Pewee  came  out  from  behind  an 
alley  fence,  accompanied  by  Ben  Berry  and 
Will  Riley. 

"I'm  going  to  settle  with  you  now,"  said 
King  Pewee,  sidling  up  to  Jack  like  an 
angry  bull-dog. 

It  was  not  a  bright  prospect  for  Jack, 
and  he  cast  about  him  for  a  chance  to 
escape  a  brutal  encounter  with  such  a 
50 


A  BATTLE 

bully,  and  yet  avoid  actually  running  away. 

"Well,"  said  Jack,  "if  I  must  fight,  I 
must.  But  I  suppose  you  won't  let  Riley 
and  Berry  help  you/' 

"No,  I'll  fight  fair."  And  Pewee  threw 
off  his  coat,  while  Jack  did  the  same. 

"You'll  quit  when  I  say  'enough,'  won't 
you?"  said  Jack. 

"Yes,  I'll  fight  fair,  and  hold  up  when 
you've  got  enough." 

"Well,  then,  for  that  matter,  I've  got 
enough  now.  I'll  take  the  will  for  the  deed 
and  just  say  'enough'  before  you  begin," 
and  he  turned  to  pick  up  his  coat. 

"No,  you  don't  get  off  that  way,"  said 
Pewee.  "You've  got  to  stand  up  and  see 
who  is  the  best  man,  or  I'll  kick  you  all 
the  way  home." 

"Didn't  you  ever  hear  about  Davy 
Crockett's  'coon?"  said  Jack.  "When  the 
'coon  saw  him  taking  aim,  it  said:  'Is  that 

51 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

you,  Crockett  ?  Well,  don't  fire— I'll  come 
down  anyway.  I  know  you'll  hit  anything 
you  shoot  at.'  Now,  I'm  that  'coon.  If 
it  was  anybody  but  you,  I'd  fight.  But  as 
it's  you,  Pewee,  I  might  just  as  well  come 
down  before  you  begin." 

Pewee  was  flattered  by  this  way  of  put 
ting  the  question.  Had  he  been  alone, 
Jack  would  have  escaped.  But  Will  Riley, 
remembering  all  he  had  endured  from 
Jack's  retorts,  said: 

"Oh,  give  it  to  him,  Pewee;  he's  always 
making  trouble." 

At  which  Pewee  squared  himself  off, 
doubled  up  his  fists,  and  came  at  the  slen 
derer  Jack.  The  latter  prepared  to  meet 
him,  but,  after  all,  it  was  hard  for  Pewee 
to  beat  so  good-humored  a  fellow  as  Jack. 
The  king's  heart  failed  him,  and  suddenly 
he  backed  off,  saying: 

"If  you'll  agree  to  help  Riley  and  me  out 
52 


A  BATTLE 

with  our  lessons  hereafter,  I'll  let  you  off. 
If  you  don't,  I'll  thrash  you  within  an  inch 
of  your  life/'  And  Pewee  stood  ready  to 
begin. 

Jack  wanted  to  escape  the  merciless 
beating  that  Pewee  had  in  store  for  him. 
But  it  was  quite  impossible  for  him  to  sub 
mit  under  a  threat.  So  he  answered: 

"If  you  and  Riley  will  treat  me  as  you 
ought  to,  I'll  help  you  when  you  ask  me, 
as  I  always  have.  But  even  if  you  pound 
me  into  jelly  I  won't  agree  to  help  you, 
unless  you  treat  me  right.  I  won't  be 
bullied  into  helping  you." 

"Give  it  to  him,  Pewee,"  said  Ben  Ber 
ry;  "he's  too  sassy." 

Pewee  was  a  rather  good-natured  dog — 
he  had  to  be  set  on.  He  now  began  to 
strike  at  Jack.  Whether  he  was  to  be 
killed  or  not,  Jack  did  not  know,  but  he 
was  resolved  not  to  submit  to  the  bully, 

53 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

Yet  he  could  not  do  much  at  defence 
against  Pewee's  hard  fists.  However,  Jack 
was  active  and  had  long  limbs;  he  soon 
saw  that  he  must  do  something  more  than 
stand  up  to  be  beaten.  So,  when  King 
Pewee,  fighting  in  the  irregular  Western 
fashion,  and  hoping  to  get  a  decided  ad 
vantage  at  once,  rushed  upon  Jack  and 
pulled  his  head  forward,  Jack  stooped  lower 
than  his  enemy  expected,  and,  thrusting 
his  head  between  Pewee's  knees,  shoved 
his  legs  from  under  him,  and  by  using  all 
his  strength  threw  Pewee  over  his  own 
back,  so  that  the  king's  nose  and  eyes  fell 
into  the  dust  of  the  village  street. 

"I'll  pay  you  for  that,"  growled  Pewee, 
as  he  recovered  himself,  now  thoroughly 
infuriated;  and  with  a  single  blow  he  sent 
Jack  flat  on  his  back,  and  then  proceeded 
to  pound  him.  Jack  could  do  nothing  now 
but  shelter  his  eyes  from  Pewee's  blows. 
54 


A  BATTLE 

Joanna  Merwin  had  seen  the  beginning 
of  the  battle  from  her  father's  house,  and 
feeling  sure  that  Jack  would  be  killed,  she 
had  run  swiftly  down  the  garden  walk  to 
the  back  gate,  through  which  she  slipped 
into  the  alley;  and  then  she  hurried  on,  as 
fast  as  her  feet  would  carry  her,  to  the 
blacksmith-shop  of  Pewee  Rose's  father. 

"Oh,  please,  Mr.  Rose,  come  quick! 
Pewee's  just  killing  a  boy  in  the  street." 

"Vitin'  ag'in,"  said  Mr.  Rose,  who  was 
a  Pennsylvanian  from  the  limestone  coun 
try,  and  spoke  English  with  difficulty. 
"He  ees  a  leetle  ruffen,  dat  poy.  I'll  see 
apout  him  right  avay  already,  may  be." 

And  without  waiting  to  put  off  his  leath 
ern  apron,  he  walked  briskly  in  the  direction 
indicated  by  Joanna.  Pewee  was  hammer 
ing  Jack  without  pity,  when  suddenly  he 
was  caught  by  the  collar  and  lifted  sharply 
to  his  feet. 

55 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

"Wot  you  doin'  down  dare  in  de  dirt 
wunst  a'ready?  Hey?"  said  Mr.  Rose,  as 
he  shook  his  son  with  the  full  force  of  his 
right  arm,  and  cuffed  him  with  his  left 
hand.  "Didn't  I  dells  you  I'd  gill  you 
some  day  if  you  didn't  gwit  vitin'  mit  oder 
poys,  a'ready?" 

"He  commenced  it,"  whimpered  Pe- 
wee. 

"You  dells  a  pig  lie  a'ready,  I  beleefs, 
Peter,  and  I'll  whip  you  fur  lyin'  besides 
wunst  more.  Fellers  like  him"  pointing 
to  Jack,  who  was  brushing  the  dust  off  his 
clothes, — "fellers  like  him  don't  gommence 
on  such  a  poy  as  you.  You're  such  anoder 
viter  I  never  seed."  And  he  shook  Pewee 
savagely. 

"I  won't  do  it  no  more,"  begged  Pewee 
— "'pon  my  word  and  honor  I  won't." 

"Oh,  you  don't  gits  off  dat  away  no 
more,  a'ready.  You  know  what  I'll  giff 
56 


A  BATTLE 

you  when  I  git  you  home,  you  leedle  ruffen. 
I  shows  you  how  to  vite,  a'ready." 

And  the  king  disappeared  down  the 
street,  begging  like  a  spaniel,  and  vowing 
that  he  "wouldn't  do  it  no  more.  But  he 
got  a  severe  whipping,  I  fear; — it  is  doubt 
ful  if  such  beatings  ever  do  any  good.  The 
next  morning  Jack  appeared  at  school  with 
a  black  eye,  and  Pewee  had  some  scratches, 
so  the  master  whipped  them  both  for 
fighting. 


57 


CHAPTER  VII 

HAT-BALL  AND  BULL-PEN 

PEWEE  did  not  renew  the  quarrel  with 
Jack — perhaps  from  fear  of  the  rawhide 
that  hung  in  the  blacksmith's  shop,  or  of 
the  master's  ox-gad,  or  of  Bob  Holliday's 
fists,  or  perhaps  from  a  hope  of  conciliat 
ing  Jack  and  getting  occasional  help  in  his 
lessons.  Jack  was  still  excluded  from  the 
favorite  game  of  "bull-pen."  I  am  not 
sure  that  he  would  have  been  rejected  had 
he  asked  for  admission,  but  he  did  not  want 
to  risk  another  refusal.  He  planned  a  less 
direct  way  of  getting  into  the  game.  Ask 
ing  his  mother  for  a  worn-out  stocking,  and 
procuring  an  old  boot-top,  he  ravelled  the 
stocking,  winding  the  yarn  into  a  ball  of 
medium  hardness.  Then  he  cut  from  the 
38 


HAT-BALL  AND  BULL-PEN 

boot-top  a  square  of  leather  large  enough 
for  his  purpose.  This  he  laid  on  the  kitch 
en-table,  and  proceeded  to  mark  off  and 
cut  it  into  the  shape  of  an  orange-peel  that 
has  been  quartered  off  the  orange,  leaving 
the  four  quarters  joined  together  at  the 
middle.  This  leather  he  put  to  soak  over 
night.  The  next  morning,  bright  and  early, 
with  a  big  needle  and  some  strong  thread 
he  sewed  it  around  his  yarn-ball,  stretching 
the  wet  leather  to  its  utmost,  so  that  when 
it  should  contract  the  ball  should  be  firm 
and  hard,  and  the  leather  well  moulded  to 
it.  Such  a  ball  is  far  better  for  all  play  in 
which  the  player  is  to  be  hit  than  those 
sold  in  the  stores  nowadays.  I  have  de 
scribed  the  manufacture  of  the  old-fash 
ioned  home-made  ball,  because  there  are 
some  boys,  especially  in  the  towns,  who 
have  lost  the  art  of  making  yarn  balls. 
When  Jack  had  finished  his  ball,  he  let 
59 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

it  dry,  while  he  ate  his  breakfast  and  did 
his  chores.  Then  he  sallied  out  and  found 
Bob  Holliday,  and  showed  him  the  result 
of  his  work.  Bob  squeezed  it,  felt  its 
weight,  bounced  it  against  a  wall,  tossed  it 
high  in  the  air,  caught  it,  and  then  bounced 
it  on  the  ground.  Having  thus  "put  it 
through  its  paces/'  he  pronounced  it  an 
excellent  ball, — "a  good  deal  better  than 
Ben  Berry's  ball.  But  what  are  you  going 
to  do  with  it  ? "  he  asked.  "Play  Anthony- 
over?  The  little  boys  can  play  that." 

I  suppose  there  are  boys  in  these  days 
who  do  not  know  what  "Anthony-over"  is. 
How,  indeed,  can  anybody  play  Anthony- 
over  in  a  crowded  city  ? 

The  old  one-story  village  school-houses 
stood  generally  in  an  open  green.  The  boys 
divided  into  two  parties,  the  one  going  on 
one  side,  and  the  other  on  the  opposite  side 
of  the  school-house.  The  party  that  had 
60 


HAT-BALL  AND   BULL-PEN 

the  ball  would  shout  "Anthony!"  The 
others  responded,  "Over!"  To  this,  an 
swer  was  made  from  the  first  party,  "Over 
she  comes!"  and  the  ball  was  immediately 
thrown  over  the  school-house.  If  any  of 
the  second  party  caught  it,  they  rushed, 
pell-mell,  around  both  ends  of  the  school- 
house  to  the  other  side,  and  that  one  of 
them  who  held  the  ball  essayed  to  hit 
some  one  of  the  opposite  party  before  they 
could  exchange  sides.  If  a  boy  was  hit  by 
the  ball  thus  thrown  he  was  counted  as 
captured  to  the  opposite  party,  and  he 
gave  all  his  efforts  to  beat  his  old  allies. 
So  the  game  went  on,  until  all  the  players 
of  one  side  were  captured  by  the  others.  I 
don't  know  what  Anthony  means  in  this 
game,  but  no  doubt  the  game  is  hundreds 
of  years  old,  and  was  played  in  English 
villages  before  the  first  colony  came  to 
Jamestown. 

61 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

"I'm  not  going  to  play  Anthony-over," 
said  Jack.  "I'm  going  to  show  King 
Pewee  a  new  trick." 

"You  can't  get  up  a  game  of  bull-pen 
on  your  own  hook,  and  play  the  four  cor 
ners  and  the  ring  all  by  yourself." 

"No,  I  don't  mean  that.  I'm  going  to 
show  the  boys  how  to  play  hat-ball — a 
game  they  used  to  play  on  the  Wildcat." 

<ki  see  your  point.  You  are  going  to 
make  Pewee  ask  you  to  let  him  in,"  said 
Bob,  and  the  two  boys  set  out  for  school 
together,  Jack  explaining  the  game  to  Bob. 
They  found  one  or  two  boys  already  there, 
and  when  Jack  showed  his  new  ball  and 
proposed  a  new  game,  they  fell  in  with  it. 

The  boys  stood  their  hats  in  a  row  on 
the  grass.  The  one  with  the  ball  stood 
over  the  row  of  hats,  and  swung  his  hand 
to  and  fro  above  them,  while  the  boys 
stood  by  him,  prepared  to  run  as  soon  as 
62 


HAT-BALL  AND   BULL-PEN 

the  ball  should  drop  into  a  hat.  The  boy 
who  held  the  ball,  after  one  or  two  false 
motions, — now  toward  this  hat,  and  now 
toward  that  one, — would  drop  the  ball  into 
Somebody's  hat.  Somebody  would  rush  to 
his  hat,  seize  the  ball,  and  throw  it  at  one 
of  the  other  boys,  who  were  fleeing  in  all 
directions.  If  he  hit  Somebody-Else,  Some 
body-Else  might  throw  from  where  the  ball 
lay,  or  from  the  hats,  at  the  rest,  and  so 
on,  until  some  one  missed.  The  one  who 
missed  took  up  his  hat  and  left  the  play, 
and  the  boy  who  picked  up  the  ball  pro 
ceeded  to  drop  it  into  a  hat,  and  the  game 
went  on  until  all  but  one  were  put  out. 

Hat-ball  is  so  simple  that  any  number 
can  play  at  it,  and  Jack's  friends  found  it 
so  full  of  boisterous  fun,  that  every  new 
comer  wished  to  set  down  his  hat.  And 
thus,  by  the  time  Pewee  and  Riley  arrived, 
half  the  larger  boys  in  the  school  were  in 

63 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

the  game,  and  there  were  not  enough  left 
to  make  a  good  game  of  bull-pen. 

At  noon,  the  new  game  drew  the  atten 
tion  of  the  boys  again,  and  Riley  and  Pewee 
tried  in  vain  to  coax  them  away. 

"Oh,  I  say,  come  on,  fellows!"  Riley 
would  say.  "Come — let's  play  something 
worth  playing." 

But  the  boys  stayed  by  the  new  game 
and  the  new  ball.  Neither  Riley,  nor  Pe 
wee,  nor  Ben  Berry  liked  to  ask  to  be  let 
into  the  game,  after  what  had  passed.  Not 
one  of  them  had  spoken  to  Jack  since  the 
battle  between  him  and  Pewee,  and  they 
didn't  care  to  play  with  Jack's  ball  in  a 
game  of  his  starting. 

Once  the  other  boys  had  broken  away 
from  Pewee's  domination,  they  were  pleased 
to  feel  themselves  free.  As  for  Pewee  and 
his  friends,  they  climbed  up  on  a  fence, 
and  sat  like  three  crows,  watching  the  play 
64 


HAT-BALL  AND   BULL-PEN 

of  the  others.  After  a  while  they  got  down 
in  disgust,  and  went  off,  not  knowing  just 
what  to  do.  When  once  they  were  out  of 
sight,  Jack  winked  at  Bob,  who  said: 

"I  say,  boys,  we  can  play  hat-ball  at 
recess  when  there  isn't  time  for  bull-pen. 
Let's  have  a  game  of  bull-pen  now,  before 
school  takes  up." 

It  was  done  in  a  minute.  Bob  Holliday 
and  Tom  Taylor  "chose  up  sides/'  the 
bases  were  all  ready,  and  by  the  time  Pewee 
and  his  aides-de-camp  had  walked  discon 
solately  to  the  pond  and  back,  the  boys 
were  engaged  in  a  good  game  of  bull-pen. 

Perhaps  I  ought  to  say  something  about 
the  principles  of  a  game  so  little  known 
over  the  country  at  large.  I  have  never 
seen  it  played  anywhere  but  in  a  narrow 
bit  of  country  on  the  Ohio  River,  and  yet 
there  is  no  merrier  game  played  with  a  balL 

The  ball  must  not  be  too  hard.  There 
65 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

should  be  four  or  more  corners.  The  space 
inside  is  called  the  pen,  and  the  party  win 
ning  the  last  game  always  has  the  corners. 
The  ball  is  tossed  from  one  corner  to  an 
other,  and  when  it  has  gone  around  once, 
any  boy  on  a  corner  may,  immediately 
after  catching  the  ball  thrown  to  him  from 
any  of  the  four  corners,  throw  it  at  any 
one  in  the  pen.  He  must  throw  while  "the 
ball  is  hot," — that  is,  instantly  on  catching 
it.  If  he  fails  to  hit  anybody  on  the  other 
side,  he  goes  out.  If  he  hits,  his  side  leave 
the  corners  and  run  as  they  please,  for  the 
boy  who  has  been  hit  may  throv  from 
where  the  ball  fell,  or  from  any  corner,  at 
any  one  of  the  side  holding  the  corners.  If 
one  of  them  is  hit,  he  has  the  same  privi 
lege;  but  now  the  men  in  the  pen  are  al 
lowed  to  scatter,  also.  Whoever  misses  is 
"out,"  and  the  play  is  resumed  from  the 
corners  until  all  of  one  side  is  out.  When 
66 


HAT-BALL  AND  BULL-PEN 

but  two  are  left  on  the  corners  the  ball  is 
smuggled, — that  is,  one  hides  the  ball  in 
his  bosom,  and  the  other  pretends  that  he 
has  it  also.  The  boys  in  the  ring  do  not 
know  which  has  it,  and  the  two  "run  the 
corners,"  throwing  from  any  corner.  If  but 
one  is  left  on  the  corners,  he  is  allowed, 
also,  to  run  from  corner  to  corner. 

It  happened  that  Jack's  side  lost  on  the 
toss-up  for  corners,  and  he  got  into  the 
ring,  where  his  play  showed  better  than 
it  would  have  done  on  the  corners.  As 
Jack  was  the  greenhorn  and  the  last  chosen 
on  his  side,  the  players  on  the  corners  ex 
pected  to  make  light  work  of  him;  but  he 
was  an  adroit  dodger,  and  he  put  out  three 
of  the  boys  on  the  corners  by  his  unex 
pected  way  of  evading  a  ball.  Everybody 
who  has  ever  played  this  fine  old  game 
knows  that  expertness  in  dodging  is  worth 
quite  as  much  as  skill  in  throwing.  Pewee 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

was  a  famous  hand  with  a  ball,  Riley  could 
dodge  well,  Ben  Berry  had  a  happy  knack 
of  dropping  flat  upon  the  ground  and  let 
ting  a  ball  pass  over  him,  Bob  Holliday 
could  run  well  in  a  counter  charge;  but 
nothing  could  be  more  effective  than  Jack 
Dudley's  quiet  way  of  stepping  forward  or 
backward,  bending  his  lithe  body  or  spread 
ing  his  legs  to  let  the  ball  pass,  according 
to  the  course  which  it  took  from  the  player's 
hand. 

King  Pewee  and  company  came  back  in 
time  to  see  Jack  dodge  three  balls  thrown 
point-blank  at  him  from  a  distance  of 
fifteen  feet.  It  was  like  witchcraft — he 
seemed  to  be  charmed.  Every  dodge  was 
greeted  with  a  shout,  and  when  once  he 
luckily  caught  the  ball  thrown  at  him,  and 
thus  put  out  the  thrower,  there  was  no  end 
of  admiration  of  his  playing.  It  was  now 
evident  to  all  that  Jack  could  no  longer  be 
68 


HAT-BALL  AND   BULL-PEN 

excluded  from  the  game,  and  that,  next  to 
Pewee  himself,  he  was  already  the  best 
player  on  the  ground. 

At  recess  that  afternoon  Pewee  set  his 
hat  down  in  the  hat-ball  row,  and  as  Jack 
did  not  object,  Riley  and  Ben  Berry  did 
the  same.  The  next  day  Pewee  chose  Jack 
first  in  bull-pen,  and  the  game  was  well 
played. 


69 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  DEFENDER 

IF  Jack  had  not  about  this  time  under 
taken  the  defence  of  the  little  boy  in  the 
Fourth  Reader,  whose  name  was  large 
enough  to  cover  the  principal  points  in  the 
history  of  the  New  World,  he  might  have 
had  peace,  for  Jack  was  no  longer  one  of 
the  newest  scholars,  his  courage  was  re 
spected  by  Pewee,  and  he  kept  poor  Riley 
in  continual  fear  of  his  ridicule — making 
him  smart  every  day.  But,  just  when  he 
might  have  had  a  little  peace  and  happiness, 
he  became  the  defender  of  Christopher  Co 
lumbus  George  Washington  Marquis  de  la 
Fayette  Risdale— little  "Andsoforth,"  as 
Riley  and  the  other  boys  had  nicknamed 
him. 

The  strange,  pinched  little  body  of  the 
70 


THE   DEFENDER 

boy,  his  eccentric  ways,  his  quickness  in 
learning,  and  his  infantile  simplicity  had  all 
conspired  to  win  the  affection  of  Jack,  so 
that  he  would  have  protected  him  even 
without  the  solicitation  of  Susan  Lanham. 
But  since  Susan  had  been  Jack's  own  first 
and  fast  friend,  he  felt  in  honor  bound  to 
run  all  risks  in  the  care  of  her  strange  little 
cousin. 

I  think  that  Columbus's  child-like  ways 
might  have  protected  him  even  from  Riley 
and  his  set,  if  it  had  not  been  that  he  was 
related  to  Susan  Lanham,  and  under  her 
protection.  It  was  the  only  chance  for 
Riley  to  revenge  himself  on  Susan.  She 
was  more  than  a  match  for  him  in  wit,  and 
she  was  not  a  proper  subject  for  Pewee's 
fists.  So  with  that  heartlessness  which  be 
longs  to  the  school-boy  bully,  he  resolved 
to  torment  the  helpless  fellow  in  revenge 
for  Susan's  sarcasms. 

71 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

One  morning,  smarting  under  some  re 
cent  taunt  of  Susan's,  Riley  caught  little 
Columbus  almost  alone  in  the  school-room. 
Here  was  a  boy  who  certainly  would  not  be 
likely  to  strike  back  again.  His  bamboo 
legs,  his  spindling  arms,  his  pale  face,  his 
contracted  chest,  all  gave  the  coward  a 
perfect  assurance  of  safety.  So,  with  a 
rude  pretence  at  play,  laughing  all  the  time, 
he  caught  the  lad  by  the  throat,  and  in 
spite  of  his  weird  dignity  and  pleading  gen 
tleness,  shoved  him  back  against  the  wall 
behind  the  master's  empty  chair.  Holding 
him  here  a  minute  in  suspense,  he  began 
slapping  him,  first  on  this  side  of  the  face 
and  then  on  that.  The  pale  cheeks  burned 
red  with  pain  and  fright,  but  Columbus 
did  not  cry  out,  though  the  constantly 
increasing  sharpness  of  the  blows,  and  the 
sense  of  weakness,  degradation,  and  terror, 
stung  him  severely.  Riley  thought  it 
funny.  Like  a  cat  playing  with  a  con- 
72 


THE  DEFENDER 

demned  mouse,  the  cruel  fellow  actually 
enjoyed  finding  one  person  weak  enough  to 
be  afraid  of  him. 

Columbus  twisted  about  in  a  vain  en 
deavor  to  escape  from  Riley's  clutches,  get 
ting  only  a  sharper  cuff  for  his  pains.  Ben 
Berry,  arriving  presently,  enjoyed  the  sport, 
while  some  of  the  smaller  boys  and  girls, 
coming  in,  looked  on  the  scene  of  torture 
in  helpless  pity.  And  ever,  as  more  and 
more  of  the  scholars  gathered,  Columbus 
felt  more  and  more  mortified;  the  tears 
were  in  his  great  sad  eyes,  but  he  made 
no  sound  of  crying  or  complaint. 

Jack  Dudley  came  in  at  last,  and  marched 
straight  up  to  Riley,  who  let  go  his  hold 
and  backed  off.  "You  mean,  cowardly, 
pitiful  villain!"  broke  out  Jack,  advancing 
on  him. 

"I  didn't  do  anything  to  you,"  whined 
Riley,  backing  into  a  corner. 

"No,  but  I  mean  to  do  something  to 
73 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

you.  If  there's  an  inch  of  man  in  you, 
come  right  on  and  fight  with  me.  You 
daren't  do  it." 

"I  don't  want  any  quarrel  with  you." 
"No,  you  quarrel  with  babies." 
Here  all  the  boys  and  girls  jeered. 
"You're  too  hard  on  a  fellow,  Jack," 
whined  the  scared  Riley,  slipping  out  of 
the  corner  and  continuing  to  back  down 
the  school-room,  while  Jack  kept  slowly 
following  him. 

"You're  a  great  deal  bigger  than  I  am," 
said  Jack.  "Why  don't  you  try  to  cor 
ner  me?  Oh,  I  could  just  beat  the  breath 
out  of  you,  you  great,  big,  good-for-noth 
ing-  -" 

Here  Riley  pulled  the  west  door  open, 
and  Jack,  at  the  same  moment,  struck  him. 
Riley  half  dropped,  half  fell,  through  the 
door-way,  scared  so  badly  that  he  went 
sprawling  on  the  ground. 
74 


THE  DEFENDER 

The  boys  shouted  " coward "  and  "baby" 
after  him  as  he  sneaked  off,  but  Jack  went 
back  to  comfort  Columbus  and  to  get  con 
trol  of  his  temper.  For  it  is  not  wise,  as 
Jack  soon  reflected,  even  in  a  good  cause 
to  lose  your  self-control. 

"It  was  good  of  you  to  interfere/'  said 
Susan,  when  she  had  come  in  and  learned 
all  about  it. 

"  I  should  have  been  a  brute  if  I  hadn't," 
said  Jack,  pleased  none  the  less  with  her 
praise.  "But  it  doesn't  take  any  courage 
to  back  Riley  out  of  a  school-house.  One 
could  get  more  fight  out  of  a  yearling  calf. 
I  suppose  I've  got  to  take  a  beating  from 
Pewee,  though." 

"Go  and  see  him  about  it,  before  Riley 
talks  to  him,"  suggested  Susan.  And  Jack 
saw  the  prudence  of  this  course.  As  he 
left  the  school-house  at  a  rapid  pace,  Ben 
Berry  told  Riley,  who  was  skulking  behind 
a  fence,  that  Jack  was  afraid  of  Pewee. 

75 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

"Pewee,"  said  Jack,  when  he  met  him 
starting  to  school,  after  having  done  his 
"chores/'  including  the  milking  of  his  cow, 
— "Pewee,  I  want  to  say  something  to 
you." 

Jack's  tone  and  manner  flattered  Pewee. 
One  thing  that  keeps  a  rowdy  a  rowdy  is 
the  thought  that  better  people  despise  him. 
Pewee  felt  in  his  heart  that  Jack  had  a 
contempt  for  him,  and  this  it  was  that 
made  him  hate  Jack  in  turn.  But  now 
that  the  latter  sought  him  in  a  friendly 
way,  he  felt  himself  lifted  up  into  a  dignity 
hitherto  unknown  to  him.  "What  is  it?" 

"You  are  a  kind  of  king  among  the 
boys,"  said  Jack.  Pewee  grew  an  inch 
taller. 

"They  are  all  afraid  of  you.    Now,  why 

don't  you  make  us  fellows  behave?    You 

ought  to  protect  the  little  boys  from  fellows 

that  impose  on  them.    Then  you'd  be  a 

76 


THE  DEFENDER 

king  worth  the  having.    All  the  boys  and 
girls  would  like  you." 

"  I  s'pose  may  be  that's  so/'  said  the  king. 

"There's  poor  little  Columbus  Ris- 
dale " 

"I  don't  like  him,"  said  Pewee. 

"You  mean  you  don't  like  Susan.  She 
is  a  little  sharp  with  her  tongue.  But  you 
wouldn't  fight  with  a  baby — it  isn't  like 
you." 

"No,  sir-ee,"  said  Pewee. 

"You'd  rather  take  a  big  boy  than  a 
little  one.  Now,  you  ought  to  make  Riley 
let  Lummy  alone." 

'Til  do  that,"  said  Pewee.  "Riley's 
about  a  million  times  bigger  than  Lum." 

"I  went  to  the  school-house  this  morn 
ing,"  continued  Jack,  "and  I  found  Riley 
choking  and  beating  him.  And  I  thought 
I'd  just  speak  to  you,  and  see  if  you  can't 
make  him  stop  it." 

77 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

"I'll  do  that,"  said  Pewee,  walking  along 
with  great  dignity. 

When  Ben  Berry  and  Riley  saw  Pewee 
coming  in  company  with  Jack,  they  were 
amazed  and  hung  their  heads,  afraid  to 
say  anything  even  to  each  other.  Jack 
and  Pewee  walked  straight  up  to  the  fence- 
corner  in  which  they  stood. 

"I  thought  I'd  see  what  King  Pewee 
would  say  about  your  fighting  with  babies, 
Riley,"  said  Jack. 

"I  want  you  fellows  to  understand,"  said 
Pewee,  "that  I'm  not  going  to  have  that 
little  Lum  Risdale  hurt.  If  you  want  to 
fight,  why  don't  you  fight  somebody  your 
own  size?  I  don't  fight  babies  myself," 
and  here  Pewee  drt,  hi<  head  up,  "and  I 
don't  stand  by  any  boy  that  does." 

Poor  Riley  felt  the  last  support  drop 
from  under  him.    Pewee  had  deserted  him, 
and  he  was  now  an  orphan,  unprotected  in 
an  unfriendly  world ! 
78 


THE  DEFENDER 

Jack  knew  that  the  truce  with  so  vain  a 
fellow  as  Pewee  could  not  last  long,  but  it 
served  its  purpose  for  the  time.  And  when, 
after  school,  Susan  Lanham  took  pains  to 
go  and  thank  Pewee  for  standing  up  tor 
Columbus,  Pewee  felt  himself  every  inch 
a  king,  and  for  the  time  he  was — if  not  a 
"reformed  prize-fighter/'  such  as  one  hears 
of  sometimes,  at  least  an  improved  boy., 
The  trouble  with  vain  people  like  Pewee  is,' 
that  they  have  no  stability.  They  bend 
the  way  the  wind  blows,  and  for  the 
most  part  the  wind  blows  from  the  wrong 
quarter. 


79 


CHAPTER  IX 

PIGEON  POT-PIE 

HAPPY  boys  and  girls  that  go  to  school 
nowadays!  You  have  to  study  harder 
than  the  generations  before  you,  it  is  true; 
you  miss  the  jolly  spelling-schools,  and 
the  good  old  games  that  were  not  half  so 
scientific  as  base-ball,  lawn  tennis,  or  la 
crosse,  but  that  had  ten  times  more  fun 
and  frolic  in  them;  but  all  this  is  made  up 
to  you  by  the  fact  that  you  escape  the  ty 
rannical  old  master.  Whatever  the  faults 
the  teachers  of  this  day  may  have,  they  do 
not  generally  lacerate  the  backs  of  their 
pupils,  as  did  some  of  their  fore-runners. 

At  the  time  of  which  I  write,  thirty  years 
ago,  a  better  race  of  school-masters  was 
crowding  out  the  old,  but  many  of  the 
80 


PIGEON  POT-PIE 

latter  class,  with  their  terrible  switches 
and  cruel  beatings,  kept  their  ground  until 
they  died  off  one  by  one,  and  relieved  the 
world  of  their  odious  ways. 

Mr.  Ball  wouldn't  die  to  please  anybody. 
He  was  a  bachelor,  and  had  no  liking  for 
children,  but  taught  school  five  or  six 
months  in  winter  to  avoid  having  to  work 
on  a  farm  in  the  summer.  He  had  taught 
in  Greenbank  every  winter  for  a  quarter 
of  a  century,  and  having  never  learned  to 
win  anybody's  affection,  had  been  obliged 
to  teach  those  who  disliked  him.  This 
atmosphere  of  mutual  dislike  will  sour  the 
sweetest  temper,  and  Mr.  Ball's  temper  had 
not  been  strained  honey  to  begin  with. 
Year  by  year  he  grew  more  and  more 
severe — he  whipped  for  poor  lessons,  he 
whipped  for  speaking  in  school,  he  took 
down  his  switch  for  not  speaking  loud 
enough  in  class,  he  whipped  for  coming 

81 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

late  to  school,  he  whipped  because  a  scholar 
made  a  noise  with  his  feet,  and  he  whipped 
because  he  himself  had  eaten  something 
unwholesome  for  his  breakfast.  The  bru 
tality  of  a  master  produces  like  qualities  in 
scholars.  The  boys  drew  caricatures  on 
the  blackboard,  put  living  cats  or  dead 
ones  into  Mr.  Ball's  desk,  and  tried  to 
drive  him  wild  by  their  many  devices. 

He  would  walk  up  and  down  the  school 
room  seeking  a  victim,  and  he  had  as  much 
pleasure  in  beating  a  girl  or  a  little  boy  as 
in  punishing  an  overgrown  fellow. 

And  yet  I  cannot  say  that  Mr.  Ball  was 
impartial.  There  were  some  pupils  that 
escaped.  Susan  Lanham  was  not  pun 
ished,  because  her  father,  Dr.  Lanham, 
was  a  very  influential  man  in  the  town; 
and  the  faults  of  Henry  Weathervane  and 
his  sister  were  always  overlooked  after  their 
father  became  a  school  trustee. 
82 


PIGEON  POT-PIE 

Many  efforts  had  been  made  to  put  a 
new  master  into  the  school.  But  Mr. 
Ball's  brother-in-law  was  one  of  the  prin 
cipal  merchants  in  the  place,  and  the  old 
man  had  had  the  school  so  long  that  it 
seemed  like  robbery  to  deprive  him  of  it. 
It  had  come,  in  some  sort,  to  belong  to 
him.  People  hated  to  see  him  moved. 
He  would  die  some  day,  they  said,  and 
nobody  could  deny  that,  though  it  often 
seemed  to  the  boys  and  girls  that  he  would 
never  die;  he  was  more  likely  to 'dry  up 
and  blow  away.  And  it  was  a  long  time 
to  wait  for  that. 

And  yet  I  think  Greenbank  might  have 
had  to  wait  for  something  like  that  if  there 
hadn't  come  a  great  flight  of  pigeons  just 
at  this  time.  For  whenever  Susan  Lanham 
suggested  to  her  father  that  he  should  try 
to  get  Mr.  Ball  removed  and  a  new  teacher 
appointed,  Dr.  Lanham  smiled  and  said 

83 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

"he  hated  to  move  against  the  old  man; 
he's  been  there  so  long,  you  know,  and 
he  probably  wouldn't  live  long,  anyhow. 
Something  ought  to  be  done,  perhaps,  but 
he  couldn't  meddle  with  him."  For  older 
people  forgot  the  beatings  they  had  en 
dured,  and  remembered  the  old  man  only 
as  one  of  the  venerable  landmarks  of  their 
childhood. 

And  so,  by  favor  of  Henry  Weather- 
vane's  father,  whose  children  he  did  not 
punish,  and  by  favor  of  other  people's 
neglect  and  forgetfulness,  the  Greenoank 
children  might  have  had  to  face  and  fear 
the  old  ogre  down  to  this  day,  or  until  he 
dried  up  and  blew  away,  if  it  hadn't  been, 
as  I  said,  that  there  came  a  great  flight  of 
pigeons. 

A  flight  of  pigeons  is  not  uncommon  in 
the  Ohio  River  country.  Audubon,  the 
great  naturalist,  saw  them  in  his  day,  and 
84 


PIGEON  POT-PIE 

in  old  colonial  times  such  flights  took  place 
in  the  settlements  on  the  sea-board,  and 
sometimes  the  starving  colonists  were  able 
to  knock  down  pigeons  with  sticks.  The 
mathematician  is  not  yet  born  who  can 
count  the  number  of  pigeons  in  one  of  these 
sky-darkening  flocks,  which  are  often  many 
miles  in  length,  and  which  follow  one  an 
other  for  a  whole  day.  The  birds,  for  the 
most  part,  fly  at  a  considerable  height  from 
the  earth,  but  when  they  are  crossing  a 
wide  valley,  like  that  of  the  Ohio  River, 
they  drop  down  to  a  lower  level,  and  so 
reach  the  hills  quite  close  to  the  ground, 
and  within  easy  gunshot. 

When  the  pigeon  flight  comes  on  Sat 
urday,  it  is  very  convenient  for  those  boys 
that  have  guns.  If  these  pigeons  had  only 
come  on  Saturday  instead  of  on  Monday, 
Mr.  Ball  might  have  taught  the  Green- 
bank  school  until  to-day, — that  is  to  say, 

85 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

if  he  hadn't  died  or  quite  dried  up  and 
blown  off  meanwhile. 

For  when  Riley  and  Ben  Berry  saw 
this  flight  of  pigeons  begin  on  Monday 
morning,  they  remembered  that  the  geog 
raphy  lesson  was  a  hard  one,  and  so  they 
played  "hooky/*  and,  taking  their  guns 
with  them,  hid  in  the  bushes  at  the  top 
of  the  hill.  Then,  as  the  birds  struck  the 
hill,  and  beat  their  way  up  over  the  brow 
of  it,  the  boys,  lying  in  ambush,  had  only 
to  fire  into  the  flock  without  taking  aim, 
and  the  birds  would  drop  all  around  them. 
The  discharge  of  the  guns  made  Bob  Holli- 
day  so  hungry  for  pigeon  pot-pie,  that  he, 
too,  ran  away  from  school,  at  recess,  and 
took  his  place  among  the  pigeon-slayers  in 
the  paw-paw  patch  on  the  hill  top. 

Tuesday  morning,  Mr.  Ball  came  in  with 
darkened  brows,  and  three  extra  switches. 
Riley,  Berry,  and  Holliday  were  called  up 
86 


PIGEON  POT-PIE 

as  soon  as  school  began.  They  had  pigeon 
pot-pie  for, dinner,  but  they  also  had  sore 
backs  for  three  days,  and  Bob  laughingly 
said  that  he  knew  just  how  a  pigeon  felt 
when  it  was  basted. 

The  day  after  the  whipping  and  the 
pigeon  pot-pie,  when  the  sun  shone  warm 
at  noon,  the  fire  was  allowed  to  go  down 
in  the  stove.  All  were  at  play  in  the  sun 
shine,  excepting  Columbus  Risdale,  who  sat 
solitary,  like  a  disconsolate  screech-owl,  in 
one  corner  of  the  room.  Riley  and  Ben 
Berry,  still  smarting  from  yesterday,  en 
tered,  and  without  observing  Lummy's 
presence,  proceeded  to  put  some  gunpowder 
in  the  stove,  taking  pains  to  surround  it 
with  cool  ashes,  so  that  it  should  not  ex 
plode  until  the  stirring  of  the  fire,  as  the 
chill  of  the  afternoon  should  come  on. 
When  they  had  finished  this  dangerous 
transaction,  they  discovered  the  presence 

87 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

of  Columbus  in  his  corner,  looking  at  them 
with  large-eyed  wonder  and  alarm. 

"  If  you  ever  tell  a  living  soul  about  that, 
we'll  kill  you,"  said  Ben  Berry. 

Riley  also  threatened  the  scared  little 
rabbit,  and  both  felt  safe  from  detection. 

An  hour  after  school  had  resumed  its 
session.  Columbus,  who  had  sat  shivering 
with  terror  all  the  time,  wrote  on  his  slate : 

"Will  Riley  and  Ben  B.  put  something 
in  the  stove.  Said  they  would  kill  me  if  I 
told  on  them/' 

This  he  passed  to  Jack,  who  sat  next  to 
him.  Jack  rubbed  it  out  as  soon  as  he 
had  read  it,  and  wrote: 

"Don't  tell  anybody/' 

Jack  could  not  guess  what  they  had  put 
in.  It  might  be  coffee-nuts,  which  would 
explode  harmlessly;  it  might  be  something 
that  would  give  a  bad  smell  in  burning, 
such  as  chicken-feathers.  If  he  had  thought 


PIGEON  POT-PIE 

that  it  was  gunpowder,  he  would  have 
plucked  up  courage  enough  to  give  the 
master  some  warning,  though  he  might 
have  got  only  a  whipping  for  his  pains. 
While  Jack  was  debating  what  he  should 
do,  the  master  called  the  Fourth-Reader 
class.  At  the  close  of  the  lesson  he  noticed 
that  Columbus  was  shivering,  though  in 
deed  it  was  more  from  terror  than  from 
cold. 

"Go  to  the  stove  and  stir  up  the  fire, 
and  get  warm,"  he  said,  sternly. 

"I'd — I'd  rather  not,"  said  Lum,  shaking 
with  fright  at  the  idea. 

"Umph!"  said  Mr.  Ball,  looking  hard 
at  the  lad,  with  half  a  mind  to  make  him 
go.  Then  he  changed  his  purpose  and 
went  to  the  stove  himself,  raked  forward 
the  coals,  and  made  up  the  fire.  Just  as 
he  was  shutting  the  stove-door,  the  ex 
plosion  came — the  ashes  flew  out  all  over 

89 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

the  master,  the  stove  was  thrown  down 
from  the  bricks  on  which  its  four  legs 
rested,  the  long  pipe  fell  in  many  pieces 
on  the  floor,  and  the  children  set  up  a 
general  howl  in  all  parts  of  the  room. 

As  soon  as  Mr.  Ball  had  shaken  off  the 
ashes  from  his  coat,  he  said:  "Be  quiet — 
there's  no  more  danger.  Columbus  Ris- 
dale,  come  here." 

"He  did  not  do  it,"  spoke  up  Susan 
Lanham. 

"Be  quiet,  Susan.  You  know  all  about 
this,  continued  the  master  to  poor  little 
Columbus,  who  was  so  frightened  as  hardly 
to  be  able  to  stand.  After  looking  at  Co 
lumbus  a  moment,  the  master  took  down 
a  great  beech  switch.  "Now,  I  shall  whip 
you  until  you  tell  me  who  did  it.  You 
were  afraid  to  go  to  the  stove.  You  knew 
there  was  powder  there.  Who  put  it  there  ? 
That's  the  question.  Answer,  quick,  or  I 
shall  make  you." 

90 


PIGEON  POT-PIE 

The  little  skin-and-bones  trembled  be 
tween  two  terrors,  and  Jack,  seeing  his 
perplexity,  got  up  and  stood  by  him. 

"He  didn't  do  it,  Mr.  Ball.  I  know 
who  did  it.  If  Columbus  should  tell  you, 
he  would  be  beaten  for  telling.  The  boy 
who  did  it  is  just  mean  enough  to  let 
Lummy  get  the  whipping.  Please  let  him 
off." 

"  You  know,  do  you  ?  I  shall  whip  you 
both.  You  knew  there  was  gunpowder  in 
the  fire,  and  you  gave  no  warning.  I  shall 
whip  you  both — the  severest  whipping  you 
ever  had,  too." 

And  the  master  put  up  the  switch  he 
had  taken  down,  as  not  effective  enough, 
and  proceeded  to  take  another. 

"If  we  had  known  it  was  gunpowder," 
said  Jack,  beginning  to  tremble,  "you 
would  have  been  warned.  But  we  didn't. 
We  only  knew  that  something  had  been 
put  in." 

91 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

"If  you'll  tell  all  about  it,  I'll  let  you  off 
easier;  if  you  don't,  I  shall  give  you  all 
the  whipping  I  know  how  to  give/'  And 
by  way  of  giving  impressiveness  to  his 
threat  he  took  a  turn  about  the  room, 
while  there  was  an  awful  stillness  among 
the  terrified  scholars. 

I  do  not  know  what  was  in  Bob  Holli- 
day's  head,  but  about  this  time  he  man 
aged  to  open  the  western  door  while  the 
master's  back  was  turned.  Bob's  desk 
was  near  the  door. 

Poor  little  Columbus  was  ready  to  die, 
and  Jack  was  afraid  that,  if  the  master 
should  beat  him  as  he  threatened  to  do, 
the  child  would  die  outright.  Luckily,  at 
the  second  cruel  blow,  the  master  broke 
his  switch  and  turned  to  get  another.  See 
ing  the  door  open,  Jack  whispered  to  Co 
lumbus: 

"Run  home  as  fast  as  you  can  go." 

The  little  fellow  needed  no  second  bid- 
92 


PIGEON  POT-PIE 

ding.  He  tottered  on  his  trembling  legs 
to  the  door,  and  was  out  before  Mr.  Ball 
had  detected  the  motion.  When  the  mas 
ter  saw  his  prey  disappearing  out  of  the 
door,  he  ran  after  him,  but  it  happened 
curiously  enough,  in  the  excitement,  that 
Bob  Holliday,  who  sat  behind  the  door, 
rose  up,  as  if  to  look  out,  and  stumbled 
against  the  door,  thus  pushing  it  shut,  so 
that  by  the  time  Mr.  Ball  got  his  stiff  legs 
outside  the  door,  the  frightened  child  was 
under  such  headway  that,  fearing  to  have 
the  whole  school  in  rebellion,  the  teacher 
gave  over  the  pursuit,  and  came  back 
prepared  to  wreak  his  vengeance  on  Jack. 
While  Mr.  Ball  was  outside  the  door, 
Bob  Holliday  called  to  Jack,  in  a  loud 
whisper,  that  he  had  better  run,  too,  or 
the  old  master  would  "skin  him  alive." 
But  Jack  had  been  trained  to  submit  to 
authority,  and  to  run  away  now  would 
lose  him  his  winter's  schooling,  on  which 

93 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

he  had  set  great  store.  He  made  up  his 
mind  to  face  the  punishment  as  best  he 
could,  fleeing  only  as  a  last  resort  if  the 
beating  should  be  unendurable^ 

"Now,"  said  the  master  to  Jack,  "will 
you  tell  me  who  put  that  gunpowder  in 
the  stove?  If  you  don't,  I'll  take  it  out 
of  your  skin." 

Jack  could  not  bear  to  tell,  especially 
under  a  threat.  I  think  that  boys  are  not 
wholly  right  in  their  notion  that  it  is  dis 
honorable  to  inform  on  a  school-mate, 
especially  in  the  case  of  so  bad  an  offence 
as  that  of  which  Will  and  Ben  were  guilty. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  last  thing  a 
master  ought  to  seek  is  to  turn  boys  into 
habitual  spies  and  informers  on  one  an 
other.  In  the  present  instance,  Jack  ought, 
perhaps,  to  have  told,  for  the  offence  was 
criminal;  but  it  is  hard  for  a  high-spirited 
lad  to  yield  to  a  brutal  threat. 
94 


PIGEON  POT-PIE 

Jack  caught  sight  of  Susan  Lanham 
telegraphing  from  behind  the  master,  by 
spelling  with  her  fingers: 

"Tell  or  run." 

But  he  could  not  make  up  his  mind  to 
do  either,  though  Bob  Holliday  had  again 
mysteriously  opened  the  western  door. 

The  master  summoned  all  his  strength 
and  struck  him  half  a  dozen  blows,  that 
made  poor  Jack  writhe.  Then  he  walked 
up  and  down  the  room  awhile,  to  give  the 
victim  time  to  consider  whether  he  would 
tell  or  not. 

"Run,"  spelled  out  Susan  on  her  fingers. 

"The  school-house  is  on  fire!"  called 
out  Bob  Holliday.  Some  of  the  coals  that 
had  spilled  from  the  capsized  stove  were 
burning  the  floor — not  dangerously,  but 
Bob  wished  to  make  a  diversion.  He 
rushed  for  a  pail  of  water  in  the  corner, 
and  all  the  rest,  aching  with  suppressed 

95 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

excitement,  crowded  around  the  fallen 
stove,  so  that  it  was  hard  for  the  master 
to  tell  whether  there  was  any  fire  or  not. 
Bob  whispered  to  Jack  to  "cut  sticks," 
but  Jack  only  went  to  his  seat. 

"Lay  hold,  boys,  and  let's  put  up  the 
stove,"  said  Bob,  taking  the  matter  quite 
out  of  the  master's  hands.  Of  course,  the 
stove-pipe  would  not  fit  without  a  great 
deal  of  trouble.  Did  ever  stove-pipe  go 
together  without  trouble?  Somehow,  all 
the  joints  that  Bob  joined  together  flew 
asunder  over  and  over  again,  though  he 
seemed  to  work  most  zealously  to  get  the 
stove  set  up.  After  half  an  hour  of  this 
confusion,  the  pipe  was  fixed,  and  the 
master,  having  had  time,  like  the  stove, 

i* 

to  cool  off,  and  seeing  Jack  bent  over  his 
book,  concluded  to  let  the  matter  drop. 
But  there  are  some  matters  that,   once 
taken  up,  are  hard  to  drop. 
96 


CHAPTER  X 

JACK  AND  HIS  MOTHER 

JACK  went  home  that  night  very  sore  on 
his  back  and  in  his  feelings.  He  felt  hu 
miliated  to  be  beaten  like  a  dog,  and  even 
a  dog  feels  degraded  in  being  beaten.  He 
told  his  mother  about  it — the  tall,  digni 
fied,  sweet-faced  mother,  patient  in  trouble 
and  full  of  a  goodness  that  did  not  talk 
much  about  goodness.  She  always  took'  it 
for  granted  that  her  boy  would  not  do 
anything  mean,  and  thus  made  a  healthy 
atmosphere  for  a  brave  boy  to  grow  in.  Jack 
told  her  of  his  whipping,  with  some  heat, 
while  he  sat  at  supper.  She  did  not  say 
much  then,  but  after  Jack's  evening  chores 
were  all  finished,  she  sat  down  by  the  can- 

97 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

die  where  he  was  trying  to  get  out  some 
sums,  and  questioned  him  carefully. 

"Why  didn't  you  tell  who  did  it?"  she 
asked. 

"Because  it  makes  a  boy  mean  to  tell, 
and  all  the  boys  would  have  thought  me 
a  sneak/' 

"It  is  a  little  hard  to  face  a  general 
opinion  like  that,"  she  said. 

"But,"  said  Jack,  "if  I  had  told,  the 
master  would  have  whipped  Columbus  all 
the  same,  and  the  boys  would  probably 
have  pounded  him,  too.  I  ought  to  have 
told  beforehand,"  said  Jack,  after  a  pause. 
"But  I  thought  it  was  only  some  coffee- 
nuts  that  they  had  put  in.  The  mean  fel 
lows,  to  let  Columbus  take  a  whipping  for 
them !  But  the  way  Mr.  Ball  beats  us  is 
enough  to  make  a  boy  mean  and  cowardly." 

After  a  long  silence,  the  mother  said:  "I 
think  we  shall  have  to  give  it  up,  Jack." 
98 


JACK  AND  HIS  MOTHER 

"What,  mother?" 

"The  schooling  for  this  winter.  I  don't 
want  you  to  go  where  boys  are  beaten  in 
that  way.  In  the  morning,  go  and  get 
your  books  and  see  what  you  can  do  at 
home/' 

Then,  after  a  long  pause,  in  which  neither 
liked  to  speak,  Mrs.  Dudley  said: 

"I  want  you  to  be  an  educated  man. 
You  learn  quickly;  you  have  a  taste  for 
books,  and  you  will  be  happier  if  you  get 
knowledge.  If  I  could  collect  the  money 
that  Gray  owes  your  father's  estate,  or 
even  a  part  of  it,  I  should  be  able  to  keep 
you  in  school  one  winter  after  this.  But 
there  seems  to  be  no  hope  for  that." 

"But  Gray  is  a  rich  man,  isn't  he?" 

"Yes,  he  has  a  good  deal  of  property, 
but  not  in  his  own  name.  He  persuaded 
your  father,  who  was  a  kind-hearted  and 
easy-natured  man,  to  release  a  mortgage, 

99 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

promising  to  give  him  some  other  security 
the  next  week.  But,  meantime,  he  put  his 
property  in  such  a  shape  as  to  cheat  all  his 
creditors.  I  don't  think  we  shall  ever 
get  anything/* 

"I  am  going  to  be  an  educated  man, 
anyhow/ ' 

"But  you  will  have  to  go  to  work  at 
something  next  fall/'  said  the  mother. 

"That  will  make  it  harder,  but  I  mean 
to  study  a  little  every  day.  I  wish  I  could 
get  a  chance  to  spend  next  winter  in  school/' 

"We'll  see  what  can  be  done." 

And  long  after  Jack  went  to  bed  that 
night  the  mother  sat  still  by  the  candle 
with  her  sewing,  trying  to  think  what  she 
could  do  to  help  her  boy  to  get  on  with 
his  studies. 

Jack  woke  up  after  eleven  o'clock,  and 
saw  her  light  still  burning  in  the  sitting* 
room. 

100 


JACK  AND   HIS  MOTHER 

"I  say,  mother,"  he  called  out,  "don't 
you  sit  there  worrying  about  me.  We  shall 
come  through  this  all  right." 

Some  of  Jack's  hopefulness  got  into  the 
mother's  heart,  and  she  took  her  light  and 
went  to  bed. 

Weary,  and  sore,  and  disappointed,  Jack 
did  not  easily  get  to  sleep  himself  after  his 
cheerful  speech  to  his  mother.  He  lay 
awake  long,  making  boy's  plans  for  his 
future.  He  would  go  and  collect  money 
by  some  hook  or  crook  from  the  rascally 
Gray;  he  would  make  a  great  invention; 
he  would  discover  a  gold  mine;  he  would 
find  some  rich  cousin  who  would  send 
him  through  college;  he  would — ,  but  just 
then  he  grew  more  wakeful  and  realized 
that  all  his  plans  had  no  foundation  of 
probability. 


101 


CHAPTER  XI 

COLUMBUS  AND  HIS  FRIENDS 

WHEN  he  waked  up  in  the  morning,  Jack 
remembered  that  he  had  not  seen  Colum 
bus  Risdale  go  past  the  door  after  his  cow 
the  evening  before,  and  he  was  afraid  that 
he  might  be  ill.  Why  had  he  not  thought 
to  go  down  and  drive  up  the  cow  himself? 
It  was  yet  early,  and  he  arose  and  went 
down  to  the  little  rusty,  brown,  unpainted 
house  in  which  the  Risdales,  who  were 
poor  people,  had  their  home.  Just  as  he 
pushed  open  the  gate,  Bob  Holliday  came 
out  of  the  door,  looking  tired  and  sleepy. 

"Hello,  Bob!"  said  Jack.  "How's  Co 
lumbus?  Is  he  sick?" 

"Awful  sick,"  said  Bob.  "Clean  out  of 
his  head  all  night." 

102 


COLUMBUS  AND  HIS  FRIENDS 

"Have  you  been  here  all  night?" 

"Yes,  I  heerd  he  was  sick  last  night, 
and  I  come  over  and  sot  up  with  him/' 

"You  good,  big-hearted  Bob !"  said  Jack. 
*  You're  the  best  fellow  in  the  world,  I 
believe." 

"What  a  quare  feller  you  air  to  talk, 
Jack,"  said  Bob,  choking  up.  "Air  you 
goin'  to  school  to-day?" 

"No.  Mother'd  rather  have  me  not  go 
any  more." 

"I'm  not  going  any  more.  I  hate  old 
Ball.  Neither's  Susan  Lanham  going. 
She's  in  there,"  and  Bob  made  a  motion 
toward  the  house  with  his  thumb,  and 
passed  out  of  the  gate,  while  Jack  knocked 
at  the  door.  He  was  admitted  by  Susan. 

"Oh,  Jack!    I'm  so  glad  to  see  you," 
she  whispered.     "Columbus  has  asked  for 
you  a  good  many  times  during  the  night. 
You've  stood  by  him  splendidly." 
103 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

Jack  blushed,  but  asked  how  Lummy 
was  now. 

"Out  of  his  head  most  of  the  time. 
Bob  Holliday  stayed  with  him  all  night. 
What  a  good  fellow  Bob  Holliday  is!" 

"I  almost  hugged  him,  just  now/'  said 
Jack,  and  Susan  couldn't  help  smiling  at 
this  frank  confession. 

Jack  passed  into  the  next  room  as 
stealthily  as  possible,  that  he  might  not 
disturb  his  friend,  and  p?msed  by  the  door. 
Mrs.  Risdale  sat  by  the  bedside  of  Colum 
bus,  who  was  sleeping  uneasily,  his  curious 
big  head  and  long,  thin  hair  making  a 
strange  picture  against  the  pillow.  His  face 
looked  more  meagre  and  his  eyes  more 
sunken  than  ever  before,  but  there  was  a 
feverish  flush  on  his  wan  cheeks,  and  the 
slender  hands  moved  uneasily  on  the  out 
side  of  the  blue  coverlet,  the  puny  arms 
were  bare  to  the  elbows. 
104 


COLUMBUS  AND   HIS   FRIENDS 

Mrs.  Risdale  beckoned  Jack  to  come 
forward,  and  he  came  and  stood  at  the 
bed-foot.  Then  Columbus  opened  his  large 
eyes  and  fixed  them  on  Jack  for  a  few 
seconds. 

"Come,  Jack,  dear  old  fellow,"  he  whis 
pered. 

Jack  came  and  bent  over  him  with  tearful 
eyes,  and  the  poor  little  reed-like  arms 
were  twined  about  his  neck. 

"Jack,"  he  sobbed,  "the  master's  right 
over  there  in  the  corner  all  the  time, 
straightening  out  his  long  switches.  He 
says  he's  going  to  whip  me  again.  But  you 
won't  let  him,  will  you,  Jack,  you  good  old 
fellow?" 

"No,  he  shan't  touch  you." 

"Let's  run  away,  Jack,"  he  said,  pres 
ently.  And  so  the  poor  little  fellow  went 
on,  his  great,  disordered  brain  producing 
feverish  images  of  terror  from  which  he 
105 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

continually  besought  "dear  good  old  Jack" 
to  deliver  him. 

When  at  last  he  dropped  again  into  a 
troubled  sleep,  Jack  slipped  away  and 
drove  up  the  Risdale  cow,  and  then  went 
back  to  his  breakfast.  He  was  a  boy 
whose  anger  kindled  slowly;  but  the  more 
he  thought  about  it,  the  more  angry  he 
became  at  the  master  who  had  given  Co 
lumbus  such  a  fright  as  to  throw  him  into 
a  brain  fever,  and  at  the  "mean,  sneaking 
contemptible  villains,"  as  he  hotly  called 
them,  who  wouldn't  come  forward  and 
confess  their  trick,  rather  than  to  have  the 
poor  little  lad  punished. 

"I  suppose  we  ought  to  make  some 
allowances,"  his  mother  said,  quietly. 

"That's  what  you  always  say,  mother. 
You're  always  making  allowances." 

After  breakfast  and  chores,  Jack  thought 
to  go  again  to  see  his  little  friend.  On 
106 


COLUMBUS   AND   HIS  FRIENDS 

issuing  from  the  gate,  he  saw  Will  Riley 
and  Ben  Berry  waiting  for  him  at  the  cor 
ner.  Whether  they  meant  to  attack  him 
or  not  he  could  not  tell,  but  he  felt  too 
angry  to  care. 

"I  say,  Jack/'  said  Riley,  "how  did  you 
know  who  put  the  powder  in  the  stove? 
Did  Columbus  tell  you?" 

"Mind  your  own  business/*  said  Jack, 
in  a  tone  not  so  polite  as  it  might  be. 
"The  less  you  say  about  gunpowder,  here 
after,  the  better  for  you  both.  Why  didn't 
you  walk  up  and  tell,  and  save  that  little 
fellow  a  beating?" 

"Look  here,  Jack,"  said  Berry,  "don't 
you  tell  what  you  know  about  it.  There's 
going  to  be  a  row.  They  say  that  Doctor 
Lanham's  taken  Susan,  and  all  the  other 
children,  out  of  school,  because  the  master 
thrashed  Lummy,  and  they  say  Bob  Holli- 
day's  quit,  and  that  you're  going  to  quit, 
107 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

and  Doctor  Lanham's  gone  to  work  this 
morning  to  get  the  master  put  out  at  the 
end  of  the  term.  Mr.  Ball  didn't  know 
that  Columbus  was  kin  to  the  Lanhams, 
or  he'd  have  let  him  alone,  like  he  does  the 
Lanhams  and  the  Weathervanes.  There  is 
going  to  be  a  big  row,  and  everybody'll 
want  to  know  who  put  the  powder  in  the 
stove.  We  want  you  to  be  quiet  about  it." 

"You  do?"  said  Jack,  with  a  sneer. 
"You  do?" 

"Yes,  we  do/'  said  Riley,  coaxingly. 

"You  do?  You  come  to  me  and  ask 
me  to  keep  it  secret,  after  letting  me  and 
that  poor  little  baby  take  your  whipping ! 
You  want  me  to  hide  what  you  did,  when 
that  poor  little  Columbus  lies  over  there 
sick  abed  and  like  to  die,  all  because  you 
sneaking  scoundrels  let  him  be  whipped 
for  what  you  did!" 

"Is  he  sick?"  said  Riley,  in  terror. 
108 


COLUMBUS  AND   HIS   FRIENDS 

"Going  to  die,  I  expect/'  said  Jack,  bit 
terly. 

"Well,"  said  Ben  Berry,  "you  be  careful 
what  you  say  about  us,  or  we'll  get  Pewee 
to  get  even  with  you." 

"Oh,  that's  your  game !  You  think  you 
can  scare  me,  do  you?" 

Jack  grew  more  and  more  angry.  Seeing 
a  group  of  school-boys  on  the  other  side  of 
the  street,  he  called  them  over. 

"Look  here,  boys,"  said  Jack,  "I  took  a 
whipping  yesterday  to  keep  from  telling  on 
these  fellows,  and  now  they  have  the  face 
to  ask  me  not  to  tell  that  they  put  the 
powder  in  the  stove,  and  they  promise  me 
a  beating  from  Pewee  if  I  do.  These  are 
the  two  boys  that  let  a  poor  sickly  baby 
take  the  whipping  they  ought  to  have  had. 
They  have  just  as  good  as  killed  him,  I 
suppose,  and  now  they  come  sneaking 
around  here  and  trying  to  scare  me  in 
109 


THE  HOOSIER   SCHOOL-BOY 

keeping  still  about  it.  I  didn't  back  down 
from  the  master,  and  I  won't  from  Pewee. 
Oh,  no !  I  won't  tell  anybody.  But  if  any 
of  you  boys  should  happen  to  guess  that 
Will  Riley  and  Ben  Berry  were  the  cowards 
who  did  that  mean  trick,  I  am  not  going 
to  say  they  weren't.  It  wouldn't  be  of 
any  use  to  deny  it.  There  are  only  two 
boys  in  school  mean  enough  to  play  such  a 
contemptible  trick  as  that." 

Riley  and  Berry  stood  sheepishly  silent, 
but  just  here  Pewee  came  in  sight,  and 
seeing  the  squad  of  boys  gathered  around 
Jack,  strode  over  quickly  and  pushed  his 
sturdy  form  into  the  midst. 

"Pewee,"  said  Riley,  "I  think  you  ought 
to  pound  Jack.  He  says  you  san't  back 
him  down." 

"I  didn't,"  said  Jack.  "I  said  you 
couldn't  scare  me  out  of  telling  who  tried 
to  blow  up  the  school-house  stove,  and  let 
110 


COLUMBUS  AND  HIS  FRIENDS 

other  boys  take  the  whipping,  by  promis 
ing  me  a  drubbing  from  Pewee  Rose.  If 
Pewee  wants  to  put  himself  in  as  mean  a 
crowd  as  yours,  and  be  your  puppy-dog 
to  fight  for  you,  let  him  come  on.  He's  a 
fool  if  he  does,  that's  all  I  have  to  say. 
The  whole  town  will  want  to  ship  you  two 
fellows  off  before  night,  and  Pewee  isn't 
going  to  fight  your  battles.  What  do  you 
think,  Pewee,  of  fellows  that  put  powder 
in  a  stove  where  they  might  blow  up  a 
lot  of  little  children?  What  do  you  think 
of  two  fellows  that  want  me  to  keep  quiet 
after  they  let  little  Lum  Risdale  take  a 
whipping  for  them,  and  that  talk  about 
setting  you  on  to  me  if  I  tell?" 

Thus  brought  face  to  face  with  both 
parties,  King  Pewee  only  looked  foolish 
and  said  nothing. 

Jack  had  worked  himself  into  such  a 
passion  that  he  could  not  go  to  Risdale's, 
111 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

but  returned  to  his  own  home,  declaring 
that  he  was  going  to  tell  everybody  in 
town.  But  when  he  entered  the  house  and 
looked  into  the  quiet,  self-controlled  face 
of  his  mother,  he  began  to  feel  cooler. 

"Let  us  remember  that  some  allowances 
are  to  be  made  for  such  boys,"  was  all 
that  she  said. 

"That's  what  you  always  say,  Mother," 
said  Jack,  impatiently.  "I  believe  you'd 
make  allowances  for  the  Old  Boy  himself." 

"That  would  depend  on  his  bringing  up," 
smiled  Mrs.  Dudley.  "Some  people  have 
bad  streaks  naturally,  and  some  have  been 
cowed  and  brutalized  by  ill-treatment,  and 
some  have  been  spoiled  by  indulgence." 

Jack  felt  more  calm  after  a  while.  He 
went  back  to  the  bedside  of  Columbus, 
but  he  couldn't  bring  himself  to  make 
allowances. 


112 


CHAPTER  XII 

GREENBANK  WAKES  UP 

IF  the  pigeons  had  not  crossed  the  valley 
on  Monday,  nobody  would  have  played 
truant,  and  if  nobody  had  played  truant 
on  Monday,  there  would  not  have  been 
occasion  to  whip  three  boys  on  Tuesday 
morning,  and  if  Ben  Berry  and  Riley  had 
escaped  a  beating  on  Tuesday  morning, 
they  would  not  have  thought  of  putting 
gunpowder  into  the  stove  on  Wednesday 
at  noon,  and  if  they  had  omitted  that  bad 
joke,  Columbus  would  not  have  got  into 
trouble  and  run  away  from  school,  and  if 
he  had  escaped  the  fright  and  the  flight, 
he  might  not  have  had  the  fever,  and  the 
town  would  not  have  been  waked  up,  and 
other  things  would  not  have  happened. 
113 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

So  then,  you  see,  this  world  of  ours  is 
just  like  the  House  that  Jack  Built:  one 
thing  is  tied  to  another  and  another  to 
that,  and  that  to  this,  and  this  to  some 
thing,  and  something  to  something  else, 
and  so  on  to  the  very  end  of  all  things. 

So  it  was  that  the  village  was  thrown 
into  a  great  excitement  as  the  result  of  a 
flock  of  innocent  pigeons  going  over  the 
heads  of  some  lazy  boys.  In  the  first  place, 
Susan  Lanham  talked  about  things.  She 
talked  to  her  aunts,  and  she  talked  to  her 
uncles,  and,  above  all,  she  talked  to  her 
father.  Now  Susan  was  the  brightest  girl 
in  the  town,  and  she  had  a  tongue,  as  all 
the  world  knew,  and  when  she  set  out  to 
tell  people  what  a  brute  the  old  master 
was,  how  he  had  beaten  two  innocent  boys, 
how  bravely  Jack  had  carried  himself,  how 
frightened  little  Columbus  was,  and  how 
sick  it  had  made  him,  and  how  mean  the 
114 


GREENBANK  WAKES  UP 

boys  were  to  put  the  powder  there,  and 
then  to  let  the  others  take  the  whipping, 
— I  say,  when  Susan  set  out  to  tell  all 
these  things,  in  her  eloquent  way,  to  every 
body  she  knew,  you  might  expect  a  waking 
up  in  the  sleepy  old  town.  Some  of  the 
people  took  Susan's  side  and  removed  their 
children  from  the  school,  lest  they,  too, 
should  get  a  whipping  and  run  home  and 
have  brain  fever.  But  many  stood  up  for 
the  old  master,  mostly  because  they  were 
people  of  the  sort  that  never  can  bear  to 
see  anything  changed.  "The  boys  ought 
to  have  told  who  put  the  powder  in  the 
stove/'  they  said.  "It  served  them  right/' 

"How  could  the  master  know  that  Jack 
and  Columbus  did  not  do  it  themselves?" 
said  others.  "Maybe  they  did !" 

"Don't  tell  me!"  cried  old  Mrs.  Home. 
"Don't  tell  me!  Boys  can't  be  managed 
without  whipping,  and  plenty  of  it.  'Bring 
115 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

up  a  child  and  aw?y  he  goes/  as  the  Bible 
says.  When  you  hire  a  master,  you  want 
a  master^  says  I." 

"What  a  tongue  that  Sue  Lanham  has 
got!"  said  Mr.  Higbie,  Mr.  Ball's  brother- 
in-law. 

The  excitement  spread  over  the  whole 
village.  Doctor  Lanham  talked  about  it, 
and  the  ministers,  and  the  lawyers,  and  the 
loafers  in  the  stores,  and  the  people  who 
came  to  the  post-office  for  their  letters.  Of 
course,  it  broke  out  furiously  in  the  "Ma 
ternal  Association/'  a  meeting  of  mothers 
held  at  the  house  of  one  of  the  ministers. 

"Mr.  Ball  can  do  every  sum  in  the  arith 
metic/'  urged  Mrs.  Weathervane. 

"He's  a  master  hand  at  figures,  they  do 
say,"  said  Mother  Brownson. 

"Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Dudley,  "I  don't  doubt 
it.  Jack's  back  is  covered  with  figures  of 
Mr.  Ball's  making.  For  my  part,  I  should 
116 


GREENBANK  WAKES  UP 

rather  have  a  master  that  did  his  figuring 
on  a  slate/' 

Susan  Lanham  got  hold  of  this  retort, 
and  took  pains  that  it  should  be  known  all 
over  the  village. 

When  Greenbank  once  gets  waked  up  on 
any  question,  it  never  goes  to  sleep  until 
that  particular  question  is  settled.  But  it 
doesn't  wake  up  more  than  once  or  twice 
in  twenty  years.  Most  of  the  time  it  is 
only  talking  in  its  sleep.  Now  that  Green- 
bank  had  its  eyes  open  for  a  little  time,  it 
was  surprised  to  see  that  while  the  cities 
along  the  river  had  all  adopted  graded 
schools, — Je-graded  schools,  as  they  were 
called  by  the  people  opposed  to  them, — 
and  while  even  the  little  villages  in  the  hill 
country  had  younger  and  more  enlightened 
teachers,  the  county-town  of  Greenbank 
had  made  no  advance.  It  employed  yet, 
under  the  rule  of  President  Fillmore,  the 
117 


THE  HOOSIER   SCHOOL-BOY 

same  hard  old  stick  of  a  master  that  had 
beaten  the  boys  in  the  log  school-house  in 
the  days  of  John  Quincy  Adams  and  An 
drew  Jackson.  But,  now  it  was  awake, 
Greenbank  kept  its  eyes  open  on  the  school 
question.  The  boys  wrote  on  the  fences, 
in  chalk: 

DOWN  WITH  OLD  BAWL  i 

and  thought  the  bad  spelling  of  the  name 
a  good  joke,  while  men  and  women  began 
to  talk  about  getting  a  new  master. 

Will  Riley  and  Ben  Berry  had  the  hard 
est  time.  For  the  most  part  they  stayed 
at  home,  during  the  excitement,  only  slink 
ing  out  in  the  evening.  The  boys  nick 
named  them  "Gunpowder  cowards/*  and 
wrote  the  words  on  the  fences.  Even  the 
loafers  about  the  street  asked  them  whether 
Old  Ball  had  given  them  that  whipping 
yet,  and  how  they  liked  "powder  and  Ball." 
118 


CHAPTER  XIII 

PROFESSOR  SUSAN 

MR.  BALL  did  not  let  go  easily.  He  had 
been  engaged  for  the  term,  and  he  declared 
that  he  would  go  on  to  the  end  of  the  term, 
if  there  should  be  nothing  but  empty 
benches.  In  truth,  he  and  his  partisans 
hoped  that  the  storm  would  blow  over  and 
the  old  man  be  allowed  to  go  on  teaching 
and  thrashing  as  heretofore.  He  had  a 
great  advantage  in  that  he  had  been  trained 
in  all  the  common  branches  better  than 
most  masters,  and  was  regarded  as  a.  mira 
cle  of  skill  in  arithmetical  calculations. 
He  even  knew  how  to  survey  land. 

Jack  was  much  disappointed  to  miss  his 
winter's  schooling,  and  there  was  no  prob 
ability  that  he  would  be  able  to  attend 
119 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

school  again.  He  went  on  as  best  he  could 
at  home,  but  he  stuck  fast  on  some  difficult 
problems  in  the  middle  of  the  arithmetic. 
Columbus  had  by  this  time  begun  to  re 
cover  his  slender  health,  and  he  was  even 
able  to  walk  over  to  Jack's  house  occasion 
ally.  Finding  Jack  in  despair  over  some 
of  his  "sums,"  he  said: 

"Why  don't  you  ask  Susan  Lanham  to 
show  you?  I  believe  she  would;  and  she 
has  been  clean  through  the  arithmetic,  and 
she  is  'most  as  good  as  the  master  himself." 

"I  don't  like  to,"  said  Jack.  "She 
wouldn't  want  to  take  the  trouble." 

But  the  next  morning  Christopher  Co 
lumbus  managed  to  creep  over  to  the 
Lanhams: 

"Cousin  Sukey,"  he  said,  coaxingly,  "I 
wish  you'd  do  something  for  me.  I  want 
to  ask  a  favor  of  you." 

"What  is  it,  Columbus?"  said  Sue. 
120 


PROFESSOR  SUSAN 

"Anything  you  ask  shall  be  given,  to  the 
half  of  my  kingdom!"  and  she  struck  an 
attitude,  as  Isabella  of  Castile,  addressing 
the  great  Columbus,  with  the  dust-brush 
for  a  sceptre,  and  the  towel,  which  she  had 
pinned  about  her  head,  for  a  crown. 

"You  are  so  funny/'  he  said,  with  a 
faint  smile.  "But  I  wish  you'd  be  sober  a 
minute/' 

"Haven't  had  but  one  cup  of  coffee  this 
morning.  But  what  do  you  want?" 

"Jack " 

"Oh,  yes,  it's  always  Jack  with  you. 
But  that's  right — Jack  deserves  it/' 

"Jack  can't  do  his  sums,  and  he  won't 
ask  you  to  help  him." 

"And  so  he  got  you  to  ask?" 

"No,  he  didn't.  He  wouldn't  let  me,  if 
he  knew.  He  thinks  a  young  lady  like 
you  wouldn't  want  to  take  the  trouble 
to  help  him." 

121 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

"Do  you  tell  that  stupid  Jack,  that  if 
he  doesn't  want  to  offend  me  so  that  I'll 
never,  never  forgive  him,  he  is  to  bring 
his  slate  and  pencil  over  here  after  supper 
this  evening.  And  you'll  come,  too,  with 
your  geography.  Yours  truly,  Susan  Lan- 
ham,  Professor  of  Mathematics  and  Nat 
ural  Science  in  the  Greenbank  Indepen 
dent  and  Miscellaneous  Academy.  Do  you 
hear?" 

"All  right."  And  Columbus,  smiling 
faintly,  went  off  to  tell  Jack  the  good  news. 
That  evening  Susan  had,  besides  her  own 
brother  and  two  sisters,  two  pupils  who 
learned  more  arithmetic  than  they  would 
have  gotten  in  the  same  time  from  Mr. 
Ball,  though  she  did  keep  them  laughing 
at  her  drollery.  The  next  evening,  little 
Joanna  Merwin  joined  the  party,  and  Pro 
fessor  Susan  felt  quite  proud  of  her  "acad 
emy,"  as  she  called  it. 

Bob  Holliday  caught  the  infection,  acd 
122 


PROFESSOR   SUSAN 

went  to  studying  at  home.  As  he  was  not 
so  far  advanced  as  Jack,  he  contented  him 
self  with  asking  Jack's  help  when  he  was 
in  trouble.  At  length,  he  had  a  difficulty 
that  Jack  could  not  solve. 

"Why  don't  you  take  that  to  the  pro 
fessor  ?  "  asked  Jack.  "  I'll  ask  her  to  show 
you." 

"I  dursn't,"  said  Bob,  with  a  frightened 
look. 

"Nonsense!"  said  Jack. 

That  evening,  when  the  lessons  were 
ended,  Jack  said: 

"Professor  Susan,  there  was  a  story  in 
the  old  First  Reader  we  had  in  the  first 
school  that  I  went  to,  about  a  dog  who 
had  a  lame  foot.  A  doctor  cured  his  foot, 
and  some  time  after,  the  patient  brought 
another  lame  dog  to  the  doctor,  and  showed 
by  signs  that  he  wanted  this  other  dog 
cured,  too." 

"That's  rather  a  good  dog-story,"  said 
123 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

Susan.    "But   what   made  you  think  of 
it?' 

"Because  I'm  that  first  dog." 

"You  are?" 

"Yes.  You've  helped  me,  but  there's 
Bob  Holliday.  I've  been  helping  him,  but 
he's  got  to  a  placs  where  I  don't  quite 
understand  the  thing  myself.  Now  Bob 
wouldn't  dare  ask  you  to  help  him " 

"Bring  him  along.  How  the  Greenbank 
Academy  grows!"  laughed  Susan,  turning 
to  her  father. 

Bob  was  afraid  of  Susan  at  first — his 
large  fingers  trembled  so  much  that  he  had 
trouble  to  use  his  slate-pencil.  But  by  the 
third  evening  his  shyness  had  worn  off,  so 
that  he  got  on  well. 

One  evening,  after  a  week  of  attendance, 
he  was  missing.  The  next  morning  he  came 
to  Jack's  house  with  his  face  scratched  and 
his  eye  bruised. 

'    124 


PROFESSOR  SUSAN 

"What's  the  matter?"  asked  Jack. 

"Well,  you  see,  yesterday  I  was  at  the 
school-house  at  noon,  and  Pewee,  egged  on 
by  Riley,  said  something  he  oughtn't  to, 
about  Susan,  and  I  couldn't  stand  there 
and  hear  that  girl  made  fun  of,  and  so  I 
up  and  downed  him,  and  made  him  take 
it  back.  I  can't  go  till  my  face  looks  bet 
ter,  you  know,  for  I  wouldn't  want  her  to 
know  anything  about  it." 

But  the  professor  heard  all  about  it  from 
Joanna,  who  had  it  from  one  of  the  school 
boys.  Susan  sent  Columbus  to  tell  Bob 
that  she  knew  all  about  it,  and  that  he 
must  come  back  to  school. 

"So  you've  been  fighting,  have  you?" 
she  said,  severely,  when  Bob  appeared. 
The  poor  fellow  was  glad  she  took  that 
tone — if  she  had  thanked  him  he  wouldn't 
have  been  able  to  reply. 

"Yes." 

125 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

"Well,  don't  you  do  it  any  more.  It's 
very  wrong  to  fight.  It  makes  boys  bru 
tal.  A  girl  with  ability  enough  to  teach 
the  Greenbank  Academy  can  take  care  of 
herself,  and  she  doesn't  want  her  scholars 
to  fight." 

"All  right,"  said  Bob.  "But,"  he  mut 
tered,  "I'll  thrash  him  all  the  same,  and 
more  than  ever,  if  he  ever  says  anything 
like  that  again." 


126 


CHAPTER  XIV 

CROWING  AFTER  VICTORY 

GREENBANK  was  awake,  and  the  old 
master  had  to  go.  Mr.  Weathervane  stood 
up  for  him  as  long  as  he  thought  that  the 
excitement  was  temporary.  But  when  he 
found  that  Greenbank  really  was  awake, 
and  not  just  talking  in  its  sleep,  as  it  did 
for  the  most  part,  he  changed  sides, — not 
all  at  once,  but  by  degrees.  At  first  he 
softened  down  a  little,  "hemmed  and 
hawed,"  as  folks  say.  He  said  he  did  not 
know  but  that  Mr.  Ball  had  been  hasty, 
but  he  meant  well.  The  next  day  he  took 
another  step,  and  said  that  the  old  master 
meant  well,  but  he  was  often  too  hasty  in 
his  temper.  The  next  week  he  let  himself 
127 


THE  HOOSIER   SCHOOL-BOY 

down  another  peg  in  saying  that  "  maybe " 
the  old  man  meant  well,  but  he  was  alto 
gether  too  hot  in  his  temper  for  a  school 
master.  A  little  while  later,  he  found  out 
that  Mr.  Ball's  way  of  teaching  was  quite 
out  of  date.  Before  a  month  had  elapsed, 
he  was  sure  that  the  old  curmudgeon  ought 
to  be  put  out,  and  thus  at  last  Mr.  Weather- 
vane  found  himself  where  he  liked  to  be, 
in  the  popular  party. 

And  so  the  old  master  came  to  his  last 
day  in  the  brick  school-house.  Whatever 
feelings  he  may  have  had  in  leaving  behind 
him  the  scenes  of  his  twenty-five  years  of 
labor,  he  said  nothing.  He  only  com 
pressed  his  lips  a  little  more  tightly,  scowled 
as  severely  as  ever,  removed  his  books  and 
pens  from  his  desk,  gave  a  last  look  at  his 
long  beech  switches  on  the  wall,  turned 
the  key  in  the  door  of  the  school-house, 
carried  it  to  Mr.  Weathervane,  received  his 
128 


CROWING  AFTER  VICTORY 

pay,  and  walked  slowly  home  to  the  house 
of  his  brother-in-law,  Mr.  Higbie. 

The  boys  had  resolved  to  have  a  demon 
stration.  All  their  pent-up  wrath  against 
the  master  now  found  vent,  since  there 
was  no  longer  any  danger  that  the  old  man 
would  have  a  chance  to  retaliate.  They 
would  serenade  him.  Bob  Holliday  was 
full  of  it.  Harry  Weathervane  was  very 
active.  He  was  going  to  pound  on  his 
mother's  bread-pan.  Every  sort  of  instru 
ment  for  making  a  noise  was  brought  into 
requisition.  Dinner-bells,  tin-pails,  conch- 
shell  dinner-horns,  tin-horns,  and  even  the 
village  bass-drum,  were  to  be  used. 

Would  Jack  go?  Bob  came  over  to  in 
quire.  All  the  boys  were  going  to  celebrate 
the  downfall  of  a  harsh  master.  He  de 
served  it  for  beating  Columbus.  So  Jack 
resolved  to  go. 

But  after  the  boys  had  departed,  Jack 
129 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

began  to  doubt  whether  he  ought  to  go  or 
not.  It  did  not  seem  quite  right;  yet  his 
feelings  had  become  so  enlisted  in  the  con 
flict  for  the  old  man's  removal,  that  he  had 
grown  to  be  a  bitter  partisan,  and  the 
recollection  of  all  he  had  suffered,  and  of 
all  Columbus  had  endured  during  his  sick 
ness,  reconciled  Jack  to  the  appearance  of 
crowing  over  a  fallen  foe,  which  this  bur 
lesque  serenade  would  have.  Nevertheless, 
his  conscience  was  not  clear  on  the  point, 
and  he  concluded  to  submit  the  matter  to 
his  mother,  when  she  should  come  home  to 
supper. 

Unfortunately  for  Jack,  his  mother  stayed 
away  to  tea,  sending  Jack  word  that  he 
would  have  to  get  his  own  supper,  and  that 
she  would  come  home  early  in  the  evening. 
Jack  ate  his  bowl  of  bread  and  milk  in 
solitude,  trying  to  make  himself  believe 
that  his  mother  would  approve  of  his 
130 


CROWING  AFTER  VICTORY 

ing  part  in  the  "shiveree"  of  the  old  mas 
ter.  But  when  he  had  finished  his  supper, 
he  concluded  that  if  his  mother  did  not 
come  home  in  time  for  nim  to  consult  her, 
he  would  remain  at  home.  He  drew  up  by 
the  light  and  tried  to  study,  but  he  longed 
to  be  out  with  the  boys.  After  a  while 
Bob  Holliday  and  Harry  Weathervane 
came  to  the  door  and  importuned  Jack  to 
come  with  them.  It  was  lonesome  at 
home;  it  would  be  good  fun  to  celebrate 
the  downfall  of  the  old  master's  cruel  rule, 
so,  taking  down  an  old  dinner-bell,  Jack 
went  off  to  join  the  rest.  He  was  a  little 
disgusted  when  he  found  Riley,  Pewee,  and 
Ben  Berry  in  the  company,  but  once  in 
the  crowd,  there  was  little  chance  to  back 
out  with  credit.  The  boys  crept  through 
the  back  alleys  until  they  came  in  front 
of  Mr.  Higbie's  house,  at  half  past  eight 
^clock.  There  was  but  one  light  visible, 
131 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

and  that  was  in  Mr.  Ball's  room.  Jack 
dropped  behind,  a  little  faint  of  heart  about 
the  expedition.  He  felt  sure  in  himself 
that  his  mother  would  shake  her  head  if 
she  knew  of  it.  At  length,  at  a  signal  from 
Bob,  the  tin  pans,  big  and  little,  the  skillet- 
lids  grinding  together,  the  horns,  both 
conch-shell  and  tin,  and  the  big  bass-drum, 
set  up  a  hideous  clattering,  banging,  boom 
ing,  roaring,  and  racketing.  Jack  rang  his 
dinner-bell  rather  faintly,  and  stood  back 
behind  all  the  rest 

"Jack's  afraid,"  said  Pewee.  "  Why  don't 
you  come  up  to  the  front,  like  a  man?" 

Jack  could  not  stand  a  taunt  like  this, 
but  came  forward  into  the  cluster  of  half- 
frightened  peace-breakers.  Just  then,  the 
door  of  Mr.  Higbie's  house  was  opened, 
and  some  one  came  out. 

"It's    Mr.    Higbie,"    said    Ben    Berry. 
"He's  going  to  shoot." 
132 


CROWING  AFTER  VICTORY 

"It's  Bugbee,  the  watchman,  going  to 
arrest  us/'  said  Pewee. 

"It's  Mr.  Ball  himself,"  said  Riley, 
"and  hell  whip  us  all."  And  he  fled, 
followed  pell-mell  by  the  whole  crowd,  ex 
cepting  Jack,  who  had  a  constitutional 
aversion  to  running  away.  He  only  slunk 
up  close  to  the  fence  and  so  stood  still. 

''Hello!  Who  are  you?"  The  voice 
was  not  that  of  Mr.  Higbie,  nor  that  of  the 
old  master,  nor  of  the  watchman,  Bugbee. 
With  some  difficulty,  Jack  recognized  the 
figure  of  Doctor  Lanham.  "Oh,  it's  Jack 
Dudley,  is  it?"  said  the  doctor,  after  ex 
amining  him  in  the  feeble  moonlight. 

"Yes,"  said  Jack,  sheepishly. 

"You're  the  one  that  got  that  whipping 
from  the  old  master.  I  don't  wonder  you 
came  out  to-night." 

"I  do,"  said  Jack,  "and  I  would  rather 
now  that  I  had  taken  another  such  whip 
ping  than  to  find  myself  here." 
133 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

"Well,  well,"  said  the  doctor,  "boys 
will  be  boys." 

"And  fools  will  be  fools,  I  suppose,"  said 
Jack. 

"Mr.  Ball  is  very  ill,"  continued  the  doc 
tor.  "Find  the  others  and  tell  them  they 
mustn't  come  here  again  to-night,  or  they'll 
kill  him.  I  wouldn't  have  had  this  happen 
for  anything.  The  old  man's  just  broken 
down  by  the  strain  he  has  been  under.  He 
has  deserved  it  all,  but  I  think  you  might 
let  him  have  a  little  peace  now." 

"So  do  I,"  said  Jack,  more  ashamed  of 
himself  than  ever. 

The  doctor  went  back  into  the  house, 
and  Jack  Dudley  and  hi«  dinner-bell  started 
off  down  the  street  in  search  of  Harry 
Weathervane  and  his  tin  pan,  and  Bob 
Holliday  and  his  skillet-lids,  and  Ben  Berry 
and  the  bass-drum. 

"Hello,  Jack!"  called  out  Bob  from  an 
134 


CROWING  AFTER  VICTORY 

alley.  "You  stood  your  ground  th^  best 
of  aU,  didn't  you? " 

"I  wish  I'd  stood  my  ground  in  the 
first  place  against  you  and  Harr}',  and 
stayed  at  home." 

"  Why,  what's  the  matter  ?   Who  was  it  ?  " 

By  this  time  the  other  boys  were  creep 
ing  out  of  their  hiding-places  and  gathering 
about  Jack. 

"Well,  it  was  the  doctor/'  said  Jack. 
"Mr.  Ball's  very  sick  and  we've  'most 
killed  him;  that's  all.  We're  a  pack  of 
cowards  to  go  tooting  at  a  poor  old  man 
when  he's  already  down,  and  we  ought  to 
be  kicked,  every  one  of  us.  That's  the 
way  I  feel  about  it,"  and  Jack  set  cut  for 
home,  not  waiting  for  any  leave-taking 
with  the  rest,  who,  for  their  part,  slunk 
away  in  various  directions,  anxious  to  get 
their  instruments  of  noise  and  torment 
hidden  away  out  of  sight. 

Jack  stuck  the  dinner-bell  under  the  hay 
135 


THE   HOOSIER   SCHOOL-BOY 

in  the  stable-loft,  whence  he  could  smuggle 
it  into  the  house  before  his  mother  should 
get  down-stairs  in  the  morning.  Then  he 
went  into  the  house. 

"Where  have  you  been?"  asked  Mrs. 
Dudley.  "I  came  home  early  so  that  you 
needn't  be  lonesome/* 

"Bob  Holliday  and  Harry  Weathervane 
came  for  me,  and  I  found  it  so  lonesome 
here  that  I  went  out  with  them." 

"Have  you  got  your  lessons?" 

"No,  ma'am,"  said  Jack,  sheepishly. 

He  was  evidently  not  at  ease,  but  his 
mother  said  no  more.  He  went  off  to  bed 
early,  and  lay  awake  a  good  part  of  the 
night.  The  next  morning  he  brought  the 
old  dinner-bell  and  set  it  down  in  the  very 
middle  of  the  breakfast-table.  Then  he 
told  his  mother  all.  about  it.  And  she 
agreed  with  him  that  he  had  done  a  very 
mean  thing. 

136 


CHAPTER  XV 

/ 

AN  ATTEMPT  TO  COLLECT 

THREE  times  a  week  the  scholars  of  the 
"Greenbank  Academy"  met  at  the  house 
of  Dr.  Lanham  to  receive  instruction  from 
Professor  Susan,  for  the  school  trustees 
could  not  agree  on  a  new  teacher.  Some 
of  the  people  wanted  one  thing,  and  some 
another;  a  lady  teacher  was  advocated  and 
opposed;  a  young  man,  an  old  man,  a  new- 
fashioned  man,  an  old-fashioned  man,  and 
no  teacher  at  all  for  the  rest  of  the  present 
year,  so  as  to  save  money,  were  projects 
that  found  advocates.  The  division  of 
opinion  was  so  great  that  the  plan  of  no 
school  at  all  was  carried  because  no  other 
could  be.  So  Susan's  class  went  on  for  a 

137 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

month,  and  grew  to  be  quite  a  little  society, 
and  then  it  came  to  an  end. 

One  evening,  when  the  lessons  were 
finished,  Professor  Susan  said:  "I  am  sorry 
to  tell  you  that  this  is  the  last  lesson  I  can 
give." 

And  then  they  all  said  "Aw-w-w-w-w!" 
in  a  melancholy  way. 

"I  am  going  away  to  school  myself, " 
Susan  went  on.  "My  father  thinks  I 
ought  to  go  to  Mr.  Niles's  school  at  Port 
William." 

"  I  shouldn't  think  you'd  need  to  go  any 
more,"  said  Joanna  Merwin.  "I  thought 
you  knew  everything." 

"Oh,  bless  me!"  cried  Susan. 

In  former  days  the  people  of  the  interior 
— the  Mississippi  Valley — which  used  then 
to  be  called  "the  West,"  were  very  desirous 
of  education  for  their  children.  But  good 
teachers  were  scarce.  Ignorant  and  pre- 
138 


AN  ATTEMPT  TO  COLLECT 

tentious  men,  incompetent  wanderers  from 
New  England,  who  had  grown  tired  of 
clock-peddling,  or  tin-peddling,  and  whose 
whole  stock  was  assurance,  besides  impos 
tors  of  other  sorts,  would  get  places  as 
teachers  because  teachers  were  scarce  and 
there  were  no  tests  of  fitness.  Now  and 
then  a  retired  Presbyterian  minister  from 
Scotland  or  Pennsylvania,  or  a  college  grad 
uate  from  New  England,  would  open  a 
school  in  some  country  town.  Then  people 
who  could  afford  it  would  send  their  chil 
dren  from  long  distances  to  board  near  the 
school,  and  learn  English  grammar,  arith 
metic,  and,  in  some  cases,  a  little  Latin,  or, 
perhaps,  to  fit  themselves  for  entrance  to 
some  of  the  sturdy  little  country  colleges 
already  growing  up  in  that  region.  At 
Port  William,  in  Kentucky,  there  was  at 
this  time  an  old  minister,  Mr.  Niles,  who 
really  knew  what  he  professed  to  teach, 
139 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

and  it  was  to  his  school  that  Dr.  Lanha^vi 
was  now  about  to  send  Susan;  Harvey  Col 
lins  and  Henry  Weathervane  had  already 
entered  the  school.  But  for  poor  boys  like 
Jack,  and  Bob  Holliday,  and  Columbus: 
who  had  no  money  with  which  to  pay 
board,  there  seemed  no  chance. 

The  evening  on  which  Susan's  class 
broke  up,  there  was  a  long  and  anxious 
discussion  between  Jack  Dudley  and  his 
mother. 

"You  see,  Mother,  if  I  could  get  even 
two  months  in  Mr.  Niles's  school,  I  could 
learn  some  Latin,  and  if  I  once  get  my  fin 
gers  into  Latin,  it  is  like  picking  bricks 
out  of  a  pavement;  if  I  once  get  a  start,  I 
can  dig  it  out  myself.  I  am  going  to  try 
to  find  some  way  to  attend  that  school." 

But  the  mother  only  shook  her  head. 

"Couldn't  we  move  to  Port  William ?" 
said  Jack. 

140 


AN  ATTEMPT  TO   COLLECT 

"How  could  we?  Here  we  have  a  house 
of  our  own,  which  couldn't  easily  be  rented. 
There  we  should  have  to  pay  rent,  and 
where  is  the  money  to  come  from?" 

"Can't  we  collect  something  from  Gray  ? " 

Again  Mrs.  Dudley  shook  her  head. 

But  Jack  resolved  to  try  the  hard 
hearted  debtor,  himself.  It  was  now  four 
years  since  Jack's  father  had  been  per 
suaded  to  release  a  mortgage  in  order  to 
relieve  Francis  Gray  from  financial  distress. 
Gray  had  promised  to  give  other  security, 
but  his  promise  had  proved  worthless. 
Since  that  time  he  had  made  lucky  specula 
tions  and  was  now  a  man  rather  well  off, 
but  he  kept  all  his  property  in  his  wife's 
name,  as  scoundrels  and  fraudulent  debtors 
usually  do.  All  that  Jack  and  his  mother 
had  to  show  for  the  one  thousand  dollars 
with  four  years'  interest  due  them,  was  a 
judgment  against  Francis  Gray,  with  the 
141 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOLBOY 

sheriff's  return  of  "no  effects"  on  the  back 
of  the  writ  of  execution  against  the  prop 
erty  "of  the  aforesaid  Francis  Gray."  For 
how  could  you  get  money  out  of  a  man 
who  was  nothing  in  law  but  an  agent  for 
his  wife  ? 

But  Jack  believed  in  his  powers  of  per- 
suasion,  and  in  the  softness  of  the  human 
heart.  He  had  never  had  to  do  with  a 
man  in  whom  the  greed  for  money  had 
turned  the  heart  to  granite. 

Two  or  three  days  later  Jack  heard  that 
Francis  Gray,  who  lived  in  Louisville,  had 
come  to  Greenbank.  Without  consulting 
his  mother,  lest  she  should  discourage  him, 
Jack  went  in  pursuit  of  the  slippery  debtor. 
He  had  left  town,  however,  to  see  his  fine 
farm,  three  miles  away,  a  farm  which  be 
longed  in  law  to  Mrs.  Gray,  but  which 
belonged  of  right  to  Francis  Gray's  creditors. 

Jack  found  Mr.  Gray  well-dressed  and 
142 


AN  ATTEMPT  TO  COLLECT 

of  plausible  manners.  It  was  hard  to  speak 
to  so  fine  a  gentleman  on  the  subject  of 
money.  For  a  minute,  Jack  felt  like  back 
ing  out.  But  then  he  contrasted  his 
mother's  pinched  circumstances  with  Fran 
cis  Gray's  abundance,  and  a  little  whole 
some  anger  came  to  his  assistance.  He  re 
membered,  too,  that  his  cherished  projects 
for  getting  an  education  were  involved,  and 
he  mustered  courage  to  speak. 

"Mr.  Gray,  my  name  is  John  Dudley." 

Jack  thought  that  there  was  a  sign  of 
annoyance  on  Gray's  face  at  this  an 
nouncement. 

"You  borrowed  a  thousand  dollars  of 
my  father  once,  I  believe/' 

"Yes,  that  is  true.  Your  father  was  a 
good  friend  of  mine." 

"He  released  a  mortgage  so  that  you 
could  sell  a  piece  of  property  when  you 
were  in  trouble." 

143 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

"Yes,  your  father  was  a  good  friend  to 
me.  I  acknowledge  that.  I  wish  I  had 
money  enough  to  pay  that  debt.  It  shall 
be  the  very  first  debt  paid  when  I  get  on 
my  feet  again,  and  I  expect  to  get  on  my 
feet,  as  sure  as  I  live." 

"But,  you  see,  Mr.  Gray,  while  my 
mother  is  pinched  for  money,  you  have 
plenty." 

"It's  all  Mrs.  Gray's  money.  She  has 
plenty.  I  haven't  anything." 

"But  I  want  to  go  to  school  to  Port 
William.  My  mother  is  too  poor  to  help 
me.  If  you  could  let  me  have  twenty-five 
dollars—" 

"But,  you  see,  I  can't.  I  haven't  got 
twenty-five  dollars  to  my  name,  that  I  can 
control.  But  by  next  New  Year's  I  mean 
to  pay  your  mother  the  whole  thousand 
that  I  owe  her." 

This  speech  impressed  Jack  a  little,  but 
144 


AN  ATTEMPT  TO  COLLECT 

remembering  how  often  Gray  had  broken 
such  promises,  he  said: 

"Don't  you  think  it  a  little  hard  that 
you  and  Mrs.  Gray  are  well  off,  while  my 
mother  is  so  poor,  all  because  you  won't 
keep  your  word  given  to  my  father?" 

"But,  you  see,  I  haven't  any  money,  ex 
cepting  what  Mrs.  Gray  lets  me  have," 
said  Mr.  Gray. 

"She  seems  to  let -you  have  what  you 
want.  Don't  you  think,  if  you  coaxed 
her,  she  would  lend  you  twenty-five  dollars 
till  New  Year's,  to  help  me  go  to  school 
one  more  term?" 

Francis  Gray  was  a  little  stunned  by 
this  way  of  asking  it.  For  a  moment, 
looking  at  the  entreating  face  of  the  boy, 
he  began  to  feel  a  disposition  to  relent  a 
little.  This  was  new  and  strange  for  him. 
To  pay  twenty-five  dollars  that  he  was  not 
obliged  by  any  self-interest  to  pay,  would 

145 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

have  been  an  act  contrary  to  all  his  habits 
and  to  all  the  business  maxims  in  which  he 
had  schooled  himself.  Nevertheless,  he 
fingered  his  papers  a  minute  in  an  unde 
cided  way,  and  then  he  said  that  he  couldn't 
do  it.  If  he  began  to  pay  creditors  in  that 
way  "it  would  derange  his  business/' 

"But,"  urged  Jack,  "think  how  much 
my  father  deranged  his  business  to  oblige 
you,  and  now  you  rob  me  of  my  own 
money,  and  of  my  chance  to  get  an  educa 
tion." 

Mr.  Gray  was  a  little  ruffled,  but  he  got 
up  and  went  out  of  the  room.  When  Jack 
looked  out  of  the  window  a  minute  later, 
Gray  was  riding  away  down  the  road  with 
out  so  much  as  bidding  the  troublesome 
Jack  good-morning. 

There  was  nothing  for  Jack  to  do  but 
to  return  to  town  and  make  the  best  of  it. 
But  all  the  way  back,  the  tired  and  dis- 
146 


AN  ATTEMPT  TO  COLLECT 

couraged  boy  felt  that  his  last  chance  of 
becoming  an  educated  man  had  vanished. 
He  told  his  mother  about  his  attempt  on 
Mr.  Gray's  feelings  and  of  his  failure. 
They  discussed  the  matter  the  whole  eve 
ning,  and  could  see  no  chance  for  Jack  to 
get  the  education  he  wanted. 

"I  mean  to  die  a-trying,"  said  Jack, 
doggedly,  as  he  went  off  to  bed. 


147 


CHAPTER  XVI 

AN  EXPLORING  EXPEDITION 

THE  next  day  but  one,  there  came  a  let 
ter  to  Mrs.  Dudley  that  increased  her  per 
plexity. 

"Your  Aunt  Hannah  is  sick,"  she  said 
to  Jack,  "and  I  must  go  to  take  care  of 
her.  I  don't  know  what  to  do  with  you/' 

"I'll  go  to  Port  William  to  school,"  said 
Jack.  "See  if  I  don't." 

"How?"  asked  his  mother.  "We  don't 
know  a  soul  on  that  side  of  the  river.  You 
couldn't  make  any  arrangement." 

"Maybe  I  can,"  said  Jack.  "Bob  Holli- 
day  used  to  live  on  the  Indiana  side,  oppo 
site  Port  William.  I  mean  to  talk  with 
him." 

148 


AN  EXPLORING  EXPEDITION 

Bob  was  setting  onions  in  one  cr  the 
onion-patches  which  abounded  about 
Greenbank,  and  which  were,  from  March 
to  July,  the  principal  sources  of  pocket- 
money  to  the  boys.  Jack  thought  best  to 
wait  until  the  day's  work  was  finished. 
Then  he  sat,  where  Greenbank  boys  were 
fond  of  sitting,  on  the  sloping  top-board 
of  a  broad  fence,  and  told  his  friend  Bob 
of  his  eager  desire  to  go  to  Port  William. 

"I'd  like  to  go,  too,"  said  Bob.  "This 
is  the  last  year's  schooling  I'm  to  have." 

"Don't  you  know  any  house,  or  any 
place,  where  we  could  keep  'bach'  to 
gether?" 

"Wy,  yes/'  said  Bob;  "if  you  didn't 
mind  rowing  across  the  river  every  day, 
I've  got  a  skiff,  and  there's  the  old  hewed- 
log  house  on  the  Indianny  side  where  we 
used  to  hve.  A  body  might  stay  as  long 
as  he  pleased  in  that  house,  I  guess.  Judge 

149 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

Kant  owns  it,  and  he's  one  of  the  best- 
hearted  men  in  the  country." 

"It's  eight  miles  down  there,"  said  Jack. 

"Only  seven  if  you  go  by  water,"  said 
Bob.  "Let's  put  out  to-morry  morning 
early.  Let's  go  in  the  skiff;  we  can  row 
and  cordelle  it  up  the  river  again,  though 
it  is  a  job." 

Bright  and  early,  the  boys  started  down 
the  river,  rowing  easily  with  the  strong, 
steady  current  of  the  Ohio,  holding  their 
way  to  Judge  Kane's,  whose  house  was 
over  against  Port  William.  This  Judge 
Kane  was  an  intelligent  and  wealthy 
farmer,  liked  by  everybody.  He  was  not 
a  lawyer,  but  had  once  held  the  office  of 
"associate  judge,"  and  hence  the  title, 
which  suited  his  grave  demeanor.  He 
looked  at  the  two  boys  out  of  his  small, 
gray,  kindly  eyes,  hardly  ever  shaking  a 
word.  He  did  not  immediately  answer 
when  they  asked  permission  to  occupy  the 
150 


AN  EXPLORING  EXPEDITION 

old,  unused  log-house,  but  got  them  to 
talk  about  their  plans,  and  watched  them 
closely.  Then  he  took  them  out  to  see 
his  bees.  He  showed  them  his  ingenious 
hives  and  a  bee-house  which  he  had  built 
to  keep  out  the  moths  by  drawing  chalk- 
lines  about  it,  for  over  these  lines  the  wing 
less  grub  of  the  moth  could  not  crawl. 
Then  he  showed  them  a  glass  hive,  in 
which  all  the  processes  of  the  bees'  house 
keeping  could  be  observed.  After  that,  he 
took  the  boys  to  the  old  log-house,  and 
pointed  out  some  holes  in  the  roof  that 
would  have  to  be  fixed.  And  even  then 
he  did  not  give  them  any  answer  to  their 
request,  but  told  them  to  stay  to  dinner 
and  he  would  see  about  it,  all  of  which 
was  rather  hard  on  boyish  impatience. 
They  had  a  good  dinner  of  fried  chicken 
and  biscuits  and  honey,  served  in  the 
neatest  manner  by  the  motherly  Mrs. 
Kane.  Then  the  Judge  suggested  that 
151 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

ought  to  see  Mr.  Niles  about  taking 
them  into  the  school.  So  his  skiff  was 
launched,  and  he  rowed  with  them  across 
the  river,  which  is  here  about  a  mile  wide, 
to  Port  William.  Here  he  introduced  them 
to  Mr.  Niles,  an  elderly  man,  a  little  bent 
and  a  little  positive  in  his  tone,  as  is 
the  habit  of  teachers,  but  with  true  kind 
ness  in  his  manner.  The  boys  had  much 
pleasure  at  recess  time  in  greeting  their 
old  school-mates,  Harvey  Collins,  Henry 
Weathervane,  and,  above  all,  Susan  Lan- 
ham,  whom  they  called  Professor.  These 
three  took  a  sincere  interest  in  the  plans 
of  Bob  and  Jack,  and  Susan  spoke  a  good 
word  for  them  to  Mr.  Niles,  who,  on  his 
part,  offered  to  give  Jack  Latin  without 
charging  him  anything  more  than  the  rates 
for  scholars  in  the  English  branches.  Then 
they  rowed  back  to  Judge  Kane's  landing, 
where  he  told  them  they  could  have  the 
152 


AN   EXPLORING  EXPEDITION 

house  without  rent,  and  that  they  could 
get  slabs  and  other  waste  at  his  little  saw 
mill  to  fix  up  the  cracks.  Then  he  made 
kindly  suggestions  as  to  the  furniture  they 
should  bring — mentioning  a  lantern,  an  ax, 
and  various  other  articles  necessary  for  a 
camp  life.  They  bade  him  good-bye  at 
last,  and  started  home,  now  rowing  against 
the  current  and  now  cordelling  along  the 
river  shore,  when  they  grew  tired  of  row 
ing.  In  cordelling,  one  sits  in  the  skiff  and 
steers,  while  the  other  walks  on  the  shore, 
drawing  the  boat  by  a  rope  over  the  shoul 
ders.  The  work  of  rowing  and  cordelling 
was  hard,  but  they  carried  light  and  hope 
ful  hearts.  Jack  was  sure  now  that  he 
should  overcome  all  obstacles  and  get  a 
good  education.  As  for  Bob,  he  had  no 
hope  higher  than  that  of  worrying  through 
vulgar  fractions  before  settling  down  to 
hard  work. 

153 


CHAPTER  XVII 

HOUSEKEEPING  EXPERIENCES 

MRS.  DUDLEY  having  gone  to  Cincinnati 
the  next  day  to  attend  her  sister,  who  was 
ill,  Jack  was  left  to  make  his  arrangements 
for  housekeeping  with  Bob.  Each  of  the 
boys  took  two  cups,  two  saucers,  two 
plates,  and  two  knives  and  forks.  Things 
were  likely  to  get  lost  or  broken,  and  there 
fore  they  provided  duplicates.  Besides, 
they  might  have  company  to  dinner  some 
day,  and,  moreover,  they  would  need  the 
extra  dishes  to  "hold  things,"  as  Jack 
expressed  it.  They  took  no  tumblers,  but 
each  was  provided  with  a  tin  cup.  Bob 
remembered  the  lantern,  and  Jack  put  in 
an  ax.  They  did  not  take  much  food; 
they  could  buy  that  of  farmers  or  in  Port 
154 


HOUSEKEEPING  EXPERIENCES 

William.  They  got  a  "gang,"  or,  as  they 
called  it,  a  "trotline,"  to  lay  down  in  the 
river  for  catfish,  perch,  and  shovel-nose 
sturgeon,  for  there  was  no  game-law  then. 
Bob  provided  an  iron  pot  to  cook  the  fish 
in,  and  Jack  a  frying-pan  and  tea-kettle. 
Their  bedding  consisted  of  an  empty  tick, 
to  be  filled  with  straw  in  Judge  Kane's 
barn,  some  equally  empty  pillow-ticks,  and 
a  pair  of  brown  sheets  and  two  blankets. 
But,  with  one  thing  and  another,  the  skiff 
was  well  loaded. 

A  good  many  boys  stood  on  the  bank  as 
they  embarked,  and  among  them  was  Co 
lumbus,  who  had  a  feeling  that  his  best 
friends  were  about  to  desert  him,  and  who 
would  gladly  have  been  one  of  the  party 
if  he  could  have  afforded  the  expense. 

In  the  little  crowd  which  watched  the 
embarkation  was  Hank  Rathbone,  an  old 
hunter  and  pioneer,  who  made  several  good 

155 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

suggestions  about  their  method  of  loading 
the  boat. 

"But  where's  your  stove?"  he  asked. 

"Stove?"  said  Bob.  "We  can't  take  a 
stove  in  this  thing.  There's  a  big  old  fire 
place  in  the  house  that'll  do  to  cook  by." 

"But  hot  weather's  comin'  soon,"  said 
old  Hank,  "and  then  you'll  want  to  cook 
out  in  the  air,  I  reckon.  Besides,  it  takes 
a  power  of  wood  for  a  fire-place.  If  one  of 
you  will  come  along  with  me  to  the  tin- 
shop,  I'll  have  a  stove  made  for  you,  of 
the  best  paytent-right  sort,  that'll  go  into 
a  skiff,  and  that  won't  weigh  more'n  three 
or  four  pounds  and  won't  cost  but  about 
two  bits." 

Jack  readily  agreed  to  buy  as  good  a 
thing  as  a  stove  for  twenty-five  cents,  and 
so  he  went,  with  Hank  Rathbone  to  the 
tin-shop,  stopping  to  get  some  iron  on  the 
way.  Two  half-inch  round  rods  of  iron 
156 


HOUSEKEEPING  EXPERIENCES 


five  feet  long  were  cut  and  sharpened  at 
each  end.  Then  the  ends  were  turned 
down  so  as  to  make  on  each  rod  two  pointed 
legs  of  eighteen  inches  in  length,  and  thus 
leave  two  feet  of  the  rod 
for  a  horizontal  piece. 

"Now,"  said  the  old  hun 
ter,  "you  drive  about  six 
inches  of  each  leg  into  the 
ground,  and  stand  them 
about  a  foot  apart.  Now 


o 


OLD  HANK'S  PLAN  FOR 
A.  STOVE 


for  a  top/' 

For  this  he  had  a  piece 
of  sheet-iron  cut  out  two  feet  long  and 
fourteen  inches  wide,  with  a  round  kettle- 
hole  near  one  end.  The  edges  of  the  long 
sides  cf  the  sheet-iron  were  bent  down  to 
fit  over  the  rods. 

"Lay  that  over  your  rods/'  said  Hank, 
"and  you've  got  a  stove  two  foot  long,  one 
foot  high,  and  more  than  one  foot  wide,, 
157 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

you  can  build  your  fire  of  chips,  instid 
01  logs.  You  can  put  your  tea-kittle,  pot, 
pipkin,  griddle,  skillet,  or  gridiron  on  to 
the  hole  "•  — the  old  man  eyed  it  admiringly. 
"It's  good  for  bilin',  fryin',  or  brilin',  and 
all  fer  two  bits.  They  ain't  many  young 
couples  gits  set  up  as  cheap  as  that !" 

An  hour  and  a  half  of  rowing  down 
stream  brought  the  boys  to  the  old  cabin. 
The  life  there  involved  more  hard  work 
than  they  had  expected.  Notwithstanding 
Jack's  experience  in  helping  his  mother,  the 
baking  of  corn-bread,  and  the  filing  of 
bacon  or  fish  were  difficult  tasks,  and  both 
the  boys  had  red  faces  when  supper  was 
on  the  table.  But,  as  time  wore  on,  they 
became  skilful,  and  though  the  work  was 
hard,  it  was  done  patiently  and  pretty  well. 
Between  cooking,  and  cleaning,  and  fixing, 
and  getting  wood,  and  rowing  to  school 
and  back,  there  was  not  a  great  deal  of 
158 


HOUSEKEEPING  EXPERIENCES 

time  left  for  study  out  of  school,  but  Jack 
made  a  beginning  in  Latin,  and  Bob  per 
spired  quite  as  freely  over  the  addition  of 
fractions  as  over  the  frying-pan. 

They  rarely  had  recreation,  excepting 
that  of  taking  the  fish  off  their  trot-line  in 
the  morning,  when  there  were  any  on  it. 
Once  or  twice  they  allowed  themselves  to 
visit  an  Indian  mound  or  burial-place  on 
the  summit  of  a  neighboring  hill,  where  idle 
boys  and  other  loungers  had  dug  up  many 
bones  and  thrown  them  down  the  declivity. 
Jack,  who  had  thoughts  of  being  a  doctor, 
made  an  effort  to  gather  a  complete  Indian 
skeleton,  but  the  dry  bones  had  become 
too  much  mixed  up.  He  could  not  get 
any  three  bones  to  fit  together,  and  his 
man,  as  he  tried  to  put  him  together,  was 
the  most  miscellaneous  creature  imaginable, 
— neither  man,  woman,  nor  child.  Bob 
was  a  little  afraid  to  have  these  human 
159 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

ruins  stored  under  the  house,  lest  he  might 
some  night  see  a  ghost  with  war-paint  and 
tomahawk;  but  Jack,  as  became  a  boy  of 
scientific  tastes,  pooh-poohed  all  supersti 
tions  or  sentimental  considerations  in  the 
matter.  He  told  Bob  that,  if  he  should 
ever  see  the  ghost  which  that  framework 
belonged  to,  it  would  be  the  ghost  of  the 
whole  Shawnee  tribe,  for  there  were  nearly 
as  many  individuals  represented  as  there 
were  bones  in  the  skeleton. 

The  one  thing  that  troubled  Jack  was 
that  he  couldn't  get  rid  of  the  image  of 
Columbus  as  they  had  seen  him  when  they 
left  Greenbank,  standing  sorrowfully  on  the 
river  bank.  The  boys  often  debated  be 
tween  themselves  how  they  could  manage 
to  have  him  one  of  their  party,  but  they 
were  both  too  poor  to  pay  the  small  tuition 
fees,  though  his  board  would  not  cost  much. 
They  could  not  see  any  way  of  getting  over 
160 


HOUSEKEEPING  EXPERIENCES 

the  difficulty,  but  they  talked  with  Susan 
about  it,  and  Susan  took  hold  of  the  mat 
ter  in  her  fashion  by  writing  to  her  father 
on  the  subject. 

The  result  of  her  energetic  effort  was  that 
one  afternoon,  as  they  came  out  of  school, 
when  the  little  packet-steamer  was  landing 
at  the  wharf,  who  should  come  ashore  but 
Christopher  Columbus,  in  his  best  but 
thread-bare  clothes,  tugging  away  at  an 
old-fashioned  carpet-bag,  which  was  too 
much  for  him  to  carry.  Bob  seized  the 
carpet-bag  and  almost  lifted  the  dignified 
little  lad  himself  off  his  feet  in  his  joyful 
welcome,  while  Jack,  finding  nothing  else 
to  do,  stood  still  and  hurrahed.  They  soon 
had  the  dear  little  spindle-shanks  and  his 
great  carpet-bag  stowed  away  in  the  skiff. 
As  they  rowed  to  the  north  bank  of  the 
river,  Columbus  explained  how  Dr.  Lan- 
ham  had  undertaken  to  pay  his  expenses, 
161 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

if  the  boys  would  take  him  into  partnership, 
but  he  said  he  was  'most  afraid  to  come, 
because  he  couldn't  chop  wood,  and  he 
wasn't  good  for  much  in  doing  the  work. 

"Never  mind,  honey,"  said  Bob.  "Jack 
and  I  don't  care  whether  you  work  or  not. 
You  are  worth  your  keep,  any  time." 

"Yes,"  said  Jack,  "we  even  tried  hard 
yesterday  to  catch  a  young  owl  to  make  a 
pet  of,  but  we  couldn't  get  it.  You  see, 
we're  so  lonesome." 

"  I  suppose  I'll  do  for  a  pet  owl,  won't  I  ?  " 
said  little  Columbus,  with  a  strange  and 
quizzical  smile  on  his  meagre  face.  And 
as  he  sat  there  in  the  boat,  with  his  big 
head  and  large  eyes,  the  name  seemed 
so  appropriate  that  Bob  and  Jack  both 
laughed  outright. 

But  the  Pet  Owl  made  himself  useful  in 
some  ways.  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  the 
housekeeping  of  Bob  and  Jack  had  not 
162 


HOUSEKEEPING  EXPERIENCES 

always  been  of  the  tidiest  kind.  They 
were  boys,  and  they  were  in  a  hurry.  But 
Columbus  had  the  tastes  of  a  girl  about  a 
house.  He  did  not  do  any  cooking  or 
chopping  to  speak  of,  but  he  fixed  up.  He 
kept  the  house  neat,  cleaned  the  candle 
stick  every  morning,  and  washed  the  win 
dows  now  and  then,  and  as  spring  advanced 
he  brought  in  handfuls  of  wild  flowers. 
The  boys  declared  that  they  had  never  felt 
at  home  in  the  old  house  until  the  Pet  Owl 
came  to  be  its  mistress.  He  wouldn't  let 
anything  be  left  around  out  of  place,  but 
all  the  pots,  pans,  dishes,  coats,  hats, 
books,  slates,  the  lantern,  the  boot-jack, 
and  other  slender  furniture,  were  put  in 
order  before  school  time,  so  that  when 
they  got  back  in  the  afternoon  the  place 
was  inviting  and  home-like.  When  Judge 
Kane  and  his  wife  stopped  during  their 
Sunday-afternoon  stroll,  to  see  how  the 

163 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

lads  got  on,  Mrs.  Kane  praised  their  house 
keeping. 

"That  is  all  the  doings  of  the  Pet  Owl," 
said  Bob. 

"Pet  Owl?  Have  you  one?"  asked 
Mrs.  Kane. 

The  boys  laughed,  and  Bob  explained 
that  Columbus  was  the  pet. 

That  evening,  the  boys  had  a  box  of 
white  honey  for  supper,  sent  over  by  Mrs. 
Kane,  and  the  next  Saturday  afternoon 
Jack  and  Bob  helped  Judge  Kane  finish 
planting  his  corn-field. 

One  unlucky  day,  Columbus  discovered 
Jack's  box  of  Indian  bones  under  the  house, 
and  he  turned  pale  and  had  a  fit  of  shiver 
ing  for  a  long  time  afterward.  It  was  nec 
essary  to  move  the  box  into  an  old  stable 
to  quiet  his  shuddering  horror.  The  next 
Sunday  afternoon,  the  Pet  Owl  came  in 
with  another  fit  of  terror,  shivering  as 
before. 

164 


HOUSEKEEPING  EXPERIENCES 

"What's  the  matter  now,  Lummy?" 
said  Jack.  "Have  you  seen  any  more 
Indians?" 

"Pewee  and  his  crowd  have  gone  up  to 
the  Indian  Mound/'  said  Culumbus. 

"Well,  let  'em  go,"  said  Bob.  "I  sup 
pose  they  know  the  way,  don't  they?  I 
should  like  to  see  them.  I've  been  so  long 
away  from  Greenbank  that  even  a  yellow 
dog  from  there  would  be  welcome." 


165 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

GHOSTS 

JACK  and  Bob  had  to  amuse  Columbus 
with  stories,  to  divert  his  mind  from  the 
notion  that  Pewee  and  his  party  meant 
them  some  harm.  The  Indian  burying- 
ground  was  not  an  ur^ommon  place  of 
resort  on  Sundays  for  loafers  and  idlers, 
and  now  and  then  parties  came  from  as 
far  as  Greenbank,  to  have  the  pleasure  of 
a  ride  and  the  amusement  of  digging  up 
Indian  relics  from  the  cemetery  on  the  hill. 
This  hill-top  commanded  a  view  of  the 
Ohio  River  for  many  miles  in  both  direc 
tions,  and  of  the  Kentucky  River,  which 
emptied  into  the  Ohio  just  opposite.  I  do 
not  know  whether  the  people  who  can  find 
amusement  in  digging  up  bones  and  throw- 
166 


GHOSTS 

ing  them  down-hill  enjoy  scenery  or  not, 
but  I  have  heard  it  urged  that  even  some 
dumb  animals,  as  horses,  enjoy  a  landscape; 
and  I  once  knew  a  large  dog,  in  Switzer 
land,  who  would  sit  enchanted  for  a  long 
time  on  the  brink  of  a  mountain  cliff, 
gazing  off  at  the  lake  below.  It  is  only 
fair  to  suppose,  therefore,  that  even  these 
idle  diggers  in  Indian  mounds  had  some 
pleasure  in  looking  from  a  hill-top;  at  any 
rate,  they  were  fond  of  frequenting  this 
one.  Pewee,  and  Riley,  and  Ben  Berry, 
and  two  or  three  others  of  the  same  feather, 
had  come  down  on  this  Sunday  to  see  the 
Indian  Mound  and  to  find  any  other  sport 
that  might  lie  in  their  reach.  When  they 
had  dug  up  and  thrown  away  down  the 
steep  hill-side  enough  bones  to  satisfy  their 
jackal  proclivities,  they  began  to  cast  about 
them  for  some  more  exciting  diversion. 
As  there  were  no  water-melon  patches  nor 
167 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

orchards  to  be  robbed  at  this  season  of  the 
year,  they  decided  to  have  an  egg-supper, 
and  then  to  wait  for  the  moon  to  rise  after 
midnight  before  starting  to  row  and  cor- 
delle  their  two  boats  up  the  river  again  to 
Greenbank.  The  fun  of  an  egg-supper  to 
Pewee's  party  consisted  not  so  much  in 
the  eggs  as  in  the  manner  of  getting  them. 
Every  nest  in  Judge  Kane's  chicken-house 
was  rummaged  that  night,  and  Mrs.  Kane 
found  next  day  that  all  the  nest-eggs  were 
gone,  and  that  one  of  her  young  hens  was 
missing  also. 

About  dark,  little  Allen  Mackay,  a  round- 
bodied,  plump-faced,  jolly  fellow  who  lived 
near  the  place  where  the  skiffs  were  landed, 
and  who  had  spent  the  afternoon  at  the 
Indian  Mound,  came  to  the  door  of  the 
old  log-house. 

"I  wanted  to  say  that  you  fellows  have 
always  done  the  right  thing  by  me.  You've 
168 


GHOSTS 

set  me  acrost  oncet  or  twicet,  and  you've 
always  been  'clever'  to  me,  and  I  don't 
want  to  see  no  harm  done  you.  You'd 
better  look  out  to-night.  They's  some 
chaps  from  Greenbank  down  here,  and 
they're  in  for  a  frolic,  and  somebody's  hen- 
roost'll  suffer,  I  guess;  and  they  don't  like 
you  boys,  and  they  talked  about  routing 
you  out  to-night." 

"Thank  you,"  said  Jack. 

"Let  'em  rout,"  said  Bob. 

But  the  poor  little  Pet  Owl  was  all  in  a 
cold  shudder  again. 

About  eleven  o'clock,  King  Pewee's  party 
had  picked  the  last  bone  of  Mrs.  Kane's 
chicken.  It  was  yet  an  hour  and  a  half 
before  the  moon  would  be  up,  and  there 
was  time  for  some  fun.  Two  boys  from 
the  neighborhood,  who  had  joined  the 
party,  agreed  to  furnish  dough-faces  for 
them  all.  Nothing  more  ghastly  than 

169 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

masks  of  dough  can  well  be  imagined,  and 
when  the  boys  all  put  them  on,  and  had 
turned  their  coats  wrong-side  out,  they 
were  almost  afraid  of  one  another. 

"Now,"  said  Riley,  "Pewee  will  knock 
at  the  door,  and  when  they  come  with 
their  lantern  or  candle,  we'll  all  rush  in 
and  howl  like  Indians. " 

"How  do  Indians  howl?"  asked  Ben 
Berry. 

"Oh,  any  way — like  a  dog  or  a  wolf, 
you  know.  And  then  they'll  be  scared  to 
death,  and  we'll  just  pitch  their  beds,  and 
dishes,  and  everything  else  out  of  the  door, 
and  show  them  how  to  clean  house." 

Riley  didn't  know  that  Allen  Mackay 
and  Jack  Dudley,  hidden  in  the  bushes,, 
heard  this  speech,  nor  that  Jack,  as  soon 
as  he  had  heard  the  plan,  crept  away  to1 
tell  Bob  at  the  house  what  the  enemy  pro 
posed  to  do. 

170 


GHOSTS 

As  the  crowd  neared  the  log-house,  Riley 
prudently  fell  to  the  rear,  and  pushed 
Pewee  to  the  front.  There  was  just  the 
faintest  whitening  of  the  sky  from  the  com 
ing  moon,  but  the  large  apple-trees  in  front 
of  the  log-house  made  it  very  dark,  and  the 
dough-face  crowd  were  obliged  almost  to 
feel  their  way  as  they  came  into  the  shadow 
of  these  trees.  Just  as  Riley  was  exhorting 
Pewee  to  knock  at  the  door,  and  the  whole 
party  was  tittering  at  the  prospect  of  turn 
ing  Bob,  Jack,  and  Columbus  out  of  bed 
and  out  of  doors,  they  all  stopped  short 
and  held  their  breaths. 

"Good  gracious!  Julius  Caesar!  sakes 
alive !"  whispered  Riley.  "What — wh — 
what  is  that?" 

Nobody  ran.  All  stood  as  though  frozen 
in  their  places.  For  out  from  behind  the 
corner  of  the  house  came  slowly  a  skeleton 
head.  It  was  ablaze  inside,  and  the  light 

171 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

shone  out  of  all  the  openings.  The  thing 
had  no  feet,  no  hands,  and  no  body.  It 
actually  floated  through  the  air,  and  now 
and  then  joggled  and  danced  a  little.  It 
rose  and  fell,  but  still  came  nearer  and 
nearer  to  the  attacking  party  of  dough 
faces,  who  for  their  part  could  not  guess 
that  Bob  Holliday  had  put  a  lighted  candle 
into  an  Indian's  skull,  and  then  tied  this 
ghost's  lantern  to  a  wire  attached  to  the 
end  of  a  fishing-rod,  which  he  operated 
from  behind  the  house. 

Pewee's  party  drew  close  together,  and 
Riley  whispered  hoarsely: 

"The  house  is  ha'nted." 

Just  then  the  hideous  and  fiery  death's- 
head  made  a  circuit,  and  swung,  grinning, 
into  Riley's  face,  who  could  stand  no  more, 
but  broke  into  a  full  run  toward  the  river. 
At  the  same  instant  Jack  tooted  a  dinner- 
horn,  Judge  Kane's  big  dog  ran  barking 
172 


GHOSTS 

out  of  the  log-house,  and  the  enemy  were 
routed  like  the  Midianites  before  Gideon. 
Their  consternation  was  greatly  increased 
at  finding  their  boats  gone,  for  Allen  Mac- 
kay  had  towed  them  into  a  little  creek  out 
of  sight,  and  hidden  the  oars  in  an  elder 
thicket.  Riley  and  one  of  fhe  others  were 
so  much  afraid  of  the  ghosts  that  "ha'nted" 
the  old  house,  that  they  set  out  straight 
way  for  Greenbank,  on  foot.  Pewee  and 
the  others  searched  everywhere  for  the 
boats,  and  at  last  sat  down  and  waited  for 
daylight.  Just  as  day  was  breaking,  Bob 
Hclliday  came  down  to  the  river  with  a 
towel,  as  though  for  a  morning  bath.  Very 
accidentally,  of  course,  he  came  upon 
Pewee  and  his  party,  all  tired  out,  sitting 
on  the  bank  in  hope  that  day  might  throw 
some  light  on  the  fate  of  their  boats. 

"Hello,  Pewee!    You  here?    What's  the 
matter?"  said  Bob,  with  feigned  surprise. 
173 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

"Some  thief  took  our  skiffs.  We've  been 
looking  for  them  all  night,  and  can't  find 
them." 

"That's  curious,"  said  Bob,  sitting  down 
and  leaning  his  head  on  his  hand.  "Where 
did  you  get  supper  last  night?" 

"Oh!  we  brought  some  with  us." 

"Look  here,  Pewee,  I'll  bet  I  can  find 
your  boats." 

"How?" 

"You  give  me  money  enough  among  you 
to  pay  for  the  eggs  and  the  chicken  you 
had  for  supper,  and  I'll  find  out  who  hid 
your  boats  and  where  the  oars  are,  and  it'll 
all  be  square." 

Pewee  was  now  sure  that  the  boat  had 
been  taken  as  indemnity  tor  the  chicken 
and  the  eggs.  He  made  every  one  of  the 
party  contribute  something  until  he  had 
collected  what  Bob  thought  sufficient  to 
pay  for  the  stolen  things,  and  Bob  took  it 
174 


GHOSTS 

and  went  up  and  found  Judge  Kane,  who 
had  just  risen,  and  left  the  money  with 
him.  Then  he  made  a  circuit  to  Allen 
Mackay's,  waked  him  up,  and  got  the  oars, 
which  they  put  into  the  boats;  and  push 
ing  these  out  of  their  hiding-place,  they 
rowed  them  into  the  river,  delivering  them 
to  Pewee  and  company,  who  took  them 
gratefully.  Jack  and  Columbus  had  now 
made  their  appearance,  and  as  Pewee  got 
into  his  boat,  he  thought  to  repay  Bob's 
kindness  with  a  little  advice. 

"  I  say,  if  I  was  you  fellers,  you  know,  I 
wouldn't  stay  in  that  old  cabin  a  single 
night." 

"Why?"  asked  Jack. 

"Because,"  said  Pewee,  "I've  heerd  tell 
that  it  is  ha'nted." 

"Ghosts  aren't  anything  when  you  get 
used  to  them,"  said  Jack.  "We  don't 
mind  them  at  all." 

175 


THE  HOOSIER   SCHOOL-BOY 

"Don't  you?"  said  Pewee,  who  was  now 
rowing  against  the  current. 

"No,"  said  Bob,  "nor  dough-faces, 
neither." 


176 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THE  RETURN  HOME 

As  Mr.  Niles's  school-term  drew  to  a 
close,  the  two  boys  began  to  think  of  their 
future. 

"I  expect  to  work  with  my  hands,  Jack," 
said  Bob;  "I  haven't  got  a  head  for  books, 
as  you  have.  But  I'd  like  to  know  a  leetle 
more  before  I  settle  down.  I  wish  I  could 
make  enough  at  something  to  be  able  to 
go  to  school  next  winter." 

"If  I  only  had  your  strength  and  size, 
Bob,  I'd  go  to  work  for  somebody  as  a 
farmer.  But  I  have  more  than  myself  to 
look  after.  I  must  help  mother  after  this 
term  is  out.  I  must  get  something  to  do, 
and  then  learning  will  be  slow  business. 
They  talk  about  Ben  Franklin  studying  at 
177 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

night  and  all  that,  but  it's  a  little  hard  on 
a  fellow  who  hasn't  the  constitution  of  a 
Franklin.  Still,  I'm  going  to  have  an  edu 
cation,  by  hook  or  crook." 

At  this  point  in  the  conversation,  Judge 
Kane  came  in.  As  usual,  he  said  little, 
but  he  got  the  boys  to  talk  about  their  own 
affairs. 

"When  do  you  go  home?"  he  asked. 

"Next  Friday  evening,  when  school  is 
out,"  said  Jack. 

"And  what  are  you  going  to  do?"  he 
asked  of  Bob. 

"Get  some  work  this  summer,  and  then 
try  to  get  another  winter  of  schooling  next 
year,"  was  the  answer. 

"What  kind  of  work?" 

"Oh,  I  can  farm  better  than  I  can  do 
anything  else,"  said  Bob.  "And  I  like  it, 
too." 

And  then  Judge  Kane  drew  from  Jack  a 
178 


THE  RETURN  HOME 

full  account  of  his  affairs,  and  particularly 
of  the  debt  due  from  Gray,  and  of  his 
interview  with  Gray. 

"  If  you  could  get  a  few  hundred  dollars, 
so  as  to  make  your  mother  feel  easy  for  a 
while,  living  as  she  does  in  her  own  house, 
you  could  go  to  school  next  winter/' 

"Yes,  and  then  I  could  get  on  after  that, 
somehow,  by  myself,  I  suppose/'  said  Jack. 
"But  the  few  hundred  dollars  is  as  much 
out  of  my  reach  as  a  million  would  be, 
and  my  father  used  to  say  that  it  was  a 
bad  thing  to  get  into  the  way  of  figuring 
on  things  that  we  could  never  reach." 

The  Judge  sat  still,  and  looked  at  Jack 
out  of  his  half -closed  gray  eyes  for  a  niinute 
in  silence. 

"Come  up  to  the  house  with  me/'  he 
said,  rising. 

Jack  followed  him  to  the  house,  where 
the  Judge  opened  his  desk  and  took  out  a 
179 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

red-backed  memorandum-book,  and  dic 
tated  while  Jack  copied  in  his  own  hand 
writing  the  description  of  a  piece  of  land 
on  a  slip  of  paper. 

"  If  you  go  over  to  school,  to-morrow,  an 
hour  earlier  than  usual,"  he  said,  "call  at 
the  county  clerk's  office,  show  him  your 
memorandum,  and  find  out  in  whose  name 
that  land  stands.  It  is  timber-land  five 
miles  back,  and  worth  five  hundred  dollars. 
When  you  get  the  name  of  the  owner,  you 
will  know  what  to  do;  if  not,  you  can  ask 
me,  but  you'd  better  not  mention  my  name 
to  anybody  in  this  matter." 

Jack  thanked  Mr.  Kane,  but  left  him 
feeling  puzzled.  In  fact,  the  farmer-judge 
seemed  to  like  to  puzzle  people,  or  at  least 
he  never  told  anything  more  than  was 
necessary. 

The  next  morning,  the  boys  were  off 
early  to  Port  William.  Jack  wondered  if 
180 


THE  RETURN  HOME 

the  land  might  belong  to  his  father,  but 
then  he  was  sure  his  father  never  had  any 
land  in  Kentucky.  Or,  was  it  the  prop 
erty  of  some  dead  uncle  or  cousin,  and  was 
he  to  find  a  fortune,  like  the  hero  of  a 
cheap  story?  But  when  the  county  clerk, 
whose  office  it  is  to  register  deeds  in  that 
county,  took  the  little  piece  of  paper,  and 
after  scanning  it,  took  down  some  great 
deed-books  and  mortgage-books,  and  turned 
the  pages  awhile,  and  then  wrote  "Francis 
Gia- ,  owner,  no  incumbrance,"  on  the 
same  slip  with  the  description,  Jack  had 
the  key  to  Mr.  Kane's  puzzle. 

It  was  now  Thursday  forenoon,  and  Jack 
was  eager  on  all  accounts  to  get  home, 
especially  to  see  the  lawyer  in  charge  of 
his  father's  claim  against  M-  3ray.  So 
the  next  day  at  noon,  as  there  was  nothing 
left  but  the  closing  exercises,  the  three 
boys  were  excused,  and  bade  good-bye  to 
181 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

their  teacher  and  school-mates,  and  rowed 
back  to  their  own  side  of  the  river.  They 
soon  had  the  skiff  loaded,  for  all  three  were 
eager  to  see  the  folks  at  Greenbank.  Jack's 
mother  had  been  at  home  more  than  a 
week,  and  he  was  the  most  impatient  of 
the  three.  But  they  could  not  leave  with 
out  a  good-bye  to  Judge  Kane  and  his 
wife,  to  which  good-bye  they  added  a  pro 
fusion  of  bashful  boyish  thanks  for  kind 
ness  received.  The  Judge  walked  to  the 
boat-landing  with  them.  Jack  begaa  to 
tell  him  about  the  land. 

"Don't  say  anything  about  it  to  me, 
nor  to  anybody  else  but  your  lawyer/' 
said  Mr.  Kane;  "and  do  not  mention  my 
name.  You  may  say  to  your  lawyer  that 
the  land  I.  ^  iust  changed  hands,  and  the 
matter  must  be  attended  to  soon.  It  won't 
stand  exposed  in  that  way  long." 

When  the  boys  were  in  the  boat  ready 
to  start,  Mr.  Kane  said  to  Bob: 
182 


THE  RETURN  HOME 

"You  wouldn't  mind  working  for  me 
this  summer  at  the  regular  price?" 

"I'd  like  to,"  said  Bob. 

"How  soon  can  you  come?" 

"Next  Wednesday  evening." 

"I'll  expect  you,"  said  the  Judge,  and  he 
turned  away  up  the  bank,  with  a  slight 
nod  and  a  curt  "Good-bye,"  while  Bob 
said:  "What  a  curious  man  he  is!" 

"Yes,  and  as  good  as  he's  curious,"  added 
Jack. 

It  was  a  warm  day  for  rowing,  but  the 
boys  were  both  a  little  homesick.  Under 
the  shelter  of  a  point  where  the  current  was 
not  too  strong  the  two  rowed  and  made 
fair  headway,  sometimes  encountering  an 
eddy  which  gave  them  a  lift.  But  when 
ever  the  current  set  strongly  toward  their 
side  of  the  river,  and  whenever  they  found 
it  necessary  to  round  a  point,  one  of  them 
would  leap  out  on  the  pebbly  beach  and, 
throwing  the  boat-rope  over  his  shoulder, 
183 


THE   HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

Set  his  strength  against  the  stream.  The 
rope,  or  cordelle, — a  word  that  has  come 
down  from  the  first  French  travellers  and 
traders  in  the  great  valley, — was  tied  to 
the  row-locks.  It  was  necessary  for  one 
to  steer  in  the  stern  while  the  other  played 
tow-horse,  so  that  each  had  his  turn  at 
rest  and  at  work.  After  three  hours'  toil 
the  wharf -boat  of  the  village  was  in  sight, 
and  all  sorts  of  familiar  objects  gladdened 
their  hearts.  They  reached  the  landing, 
and  then,  laden  with  things,  they  hurriedly 
cut  across  the  commons  to  their  homes. 

As  soon  as  Jack's  first  greeting  with  his 
mother  was  over,  she  told  him  that  she 
thought  she  might  afford  him  one  more 
quarter  of  school. 

"No,"  said  Jack,  "you've  pinched  your 
self  long  enough  for  me;  now  it's  time  I 
should  go  to  work.  If  you  try  to  squeeze 
out  another  quarter  of  school  for  me  you'll 
184 


THE  RETURN  HOME 

have  to  suffer  for  it.  Besides,  I  don't  see 
how  you  can  do  it,  unless  Gray  comes 
down,  and  I  think  I  have  now  in  my  pocket 
something  that  will  make  him  come  down/' 
And  Jack's  face  brightened  at  the  thought 
of  the  slip  of  paper  in  the  pocket  of  his 
roundabout. 

Without  observing  the  last  remark,  nor 
the  evident  elation  of  Jack's  feelings,  Mrs. 
Dudley  proceeded  to  tell  him  that  she  had 
been  offered  a  hundred  and  twenty  dollars 
for  her  claim  against  Gray. 

"Who  offered  it?"  asked  Jack. 

"Mr.  Tinkham,  Gray's  agent.  Maybe 
Gray  is  buying  up  his  own  debts,  feeling 
tired  of  holding  property  in  somebody  else's 
name." 

"A  hundred  and  twenty  dollars  for  a 
thousand!  The  rascal!  I  wouldn't  take 
it,"  broke  out  Jack,  impetuously. 

"That's  just  the  way  I  feel,  Jack.  I'd 
185 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

rather  wait  forever,  if  it  wasn't  for  your 
education.  I  can't  afford  to  have  you  lose 
that.  I'm  to  give  an  answer  this  evening." 

"We  won't  do  it,"  said  Jack.  "I've  got 
a  memorandum  here,"  and  he  took  the  slip 
of  paper  from  his  pocket  and  unfolded  it, 
"that'll  bring  more  money  out  of  him 
than  that.  I'm  going  to  see  Mr.  Beal  at 
once." 

Mrs.  Dudley  looked  at  the  paper  without 
understanding  just  what  it  was,  and,  with 
out  giving  her  any  further  explanation,  but 
only  a  warning  to  secrecy,  Jack  made  off 
to  the  lawyer's  office. 

"Where  did  you  get  this?"  asked  Mr. 
Beal. 

"I  promised  not  to  mention  his  name — 
I  mean  the  name  of  the  one  who  gave  me 
that.  I  went  to  the  clerk's  office  with  the 
description,  and  the  clerk  wrote  the  words : 
'Francis  Gray,  owner,  no  incumbrance." 
186 


THE  RETURN  HOME 

"I  wish  I  had  had  it  sooner,"  said  the 
lawyer.  "  It  will  be  best  to  have  our  judg 
ment  recorded  in  that  county  to-morrow/' 
he  continued.  "Could  you  go  down  to 
Port  William?" 

"Yes,  sir,"  said  Jack,  a  little  reluctant 
to  go  back.  "I  could  if  I  must." 

"I  don't  think  the  mail  will  do,"  added 
Mr.  Beal.  "This  thing  came  just  in  time. 
We  should  have  sold  the  claim  to-night. 
This  land  ought  to  fetch  five  hundred  dol 
lars." 

Mr.  Tinkham,  agent  for  Francis  Gray, 
was  much  disappointed  that  night  when 
Mrs.  Dudley  refused  to  sell  her  claim 
against  Gray. 

"You'll  never  get  anything  any  other 
way,"  he  said. 

"Perhaps  not,  but  we've  concluded  to 
wait,"  said  Mrs.  Dudley.     "We  can't  do 
much  worse  if  we  get  nothing  at  all." 
187 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

After  a  moment's  reflection,  Mr.  Tink- 
ham  said: 

"I'll  do  a  little  better  by  you,  Mrs.  Dud 
ley.  I'll  give  you  a  hundred  and  fifty. 
That's  the  very  best  I  can  do." 

"I  will  not  sell  the  claim  at  present," 
said  Mrs.  Dudley.  "It  is  of  no  use  to 
offer." 

It  would  have  been  better  if  Mrs.  Dud 
ley  had  not  spoken  so  positively.  Mr. 
Tinkham  was  set  a-thinking.  Why  would 
n't  the  widow  sell  ?  Why  had  she  changed 
her  mind  since  yesterday?  Why  did  Mr. 
Beal,  the  lawyer,  not  appear  at  the  con 
sultation?  All  these  questions  the  shrewd 
little  Tinkham  asked  himself,  and  all  these 
questions  he  asked  of  Francis  Gray  that 
evening. 


188 


CHAPTER  XX 

A  FOOT-RACE  FOR  MONEY 

"THEY'VE  got  wind  of  something,"  said 
Mr.  Tinkham  to  Mr.  Gray,  "or  else  they 
are  waiting  for  you  to  resume  payment, — 
or  else  the  widow's  got  money  from  some 
where  for  her  present  necessities." 

"  I  don't  know  what  hope  they  can  have 
of  getting  money  out  of  me,"  said  Gray, 
with  a  laugh.  "I've  tangled  everything 
up,  so  that  Beal  can't  find  a  thing  to  levy 
on.  I  have  but  one  piece  of  property  ex 
posed,  and  that's  not  in  this  State." 

"Where  is  it?"  asked  Tinkham. 

"It's  in  Kentucky,  five  miles  back  of 
Port  William.  I  took  it  last  week  in  a 
trade,  and  I  haven't  yet  made  up  my  mind 
what  to  do  with  it." 

189 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

"That's  the  very  thing,"  said  Tinkham, 
with  his  little  face  drawn  to  a  point, — "the 
very  thing.  Mrs.  Dudley's  son  came  home 
from  Port  William  yesterday,  where  he  has 
been  at  school.  They've  heard  of  that 
land,  I'm  afraid;  for  Mrs.  Dudley  is  very 
positive  that  she  will  not  sell  the  claim  at 
any  price." 

"  I'll  make  a  mortgage  to  my  brother  on 
that  land,  and  send  it  off  from  the  mail- 
boat  as  I  go  down  to-morrow,"  said  Gray. 

"That'll  be  too  late,"  said  Tinkham. 
"Beal  will  have  his  judgment  recorded  as 
soon  as  the  packet  gets  there.  You'd  bet 
ter  go  by  the  packet,  get  off,  and  see  the 
mortgage  recorded  yourself,  and  then  take 
the  mail-boat." 

To  this  Gray  agreed,  and  the  next  day, 

when   Jack'  went   on   board    the    packet 

"Swiftsure,"  he  found  Mr.  Francis  Gray 

going  aboard  also.    Mr.  Beal  had  warned 

190 


A  FOOT-RACE  FOR  MONEY 

Jack  that  he  must  not  let  anybody  from 
the  packet  get  to  the  clerk's  office  ahead  of 
him, — that  the  first  paper  deposited  for 
record  would  take  the  land.  Jack  won 
dered  why  Mr.  Francis  Gray  was  aboard 
the  packet,  which  went  no  farther  than 
Madison,  while  Mr.  Gray's  home  was  in 
Louisville.  He  soon  guessed,  however,  that 
Gray  meant  to  land  at  Port  William,  and 
so  to  head  him  off.  Jack  looked  at  Mr. 
Gray's  form,  made  plump  by  good  feeding, 
and  felt  safe.  He  couldn't  be  very  dan 
gerous  in  a  foot-race.  Jack  reflected  with 
much  hopefulness  that  no  boy  in  school 
could  catch  him  in  a  straight-away  run 
when  he  was  fox.  He  would  certainly  leave 
the  somewhat  puffy  Mr.  Francis  Gray  be 
hind. 

But  in  the  hour's  run  down  the  river,  in 
cluding    two    landings    at    Minuit's    and 
Craig's,  Jack  had  time  to  remember  that 
191 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

Francis  Gray  was  a  cunning  man  and 
might  head  him  off  by  some  trick  or  other. 
A  vague  fear  took  possession  of  him,  and 
he  resolved  to  be  first  off  the  boat  before 
any  pretext  could  be  invented  to  stop  him. 

Meantime,  Francis  Gray  had  looked  at 
Jack's  lithe  legs  with  apprehension.  "I 
can  never  beat  that  boy/'  he  had  reflected. 
"My  running  days  are  over."  Finding 
among  the  deck  passengers  a  young  fellow 
who  looked  as  though  he  needed  money, 
Gray  approached  him  with  this  question: 

"Do  you  belong  in  Port  William,  young 
man?" 

"I  don't  belong  nowhere  else,  I  reckon," 
answered  the  seedy  fellow,  with  shuffling 
impudence. 

"Do  you  know  where  the  county  clerk's 
office  is?"  asked  Mr.  Gray. 

"Yes,  and  the  market-house.  I  can 
show  you  the  way  to  the  jail,  too,  if  you 
192 


A  FOOT-RACE  FOR  MONEY 

want  to  know;  but  I  s'pose  you've  been 
there  many  a  time,"  laughed  the  "wharf 
rat." 

Gray  was  irritated  at  this  rudeness,  but 
he  swallowed  his  anger. 

"Would  you  like  to  make  five  dollars?" 

"Now  you're  talkin'  interestin'.  Why 
didn't  you  begin  at  that  eend  of  the  sub- 
jick?  I'd  like  to  make  five  dollars  as  well 
as  the  next  feller,  provided  it  isn't  to  be 
made  by  too  much  awful  hard  work." 

"Can  you  run  well?" 

"If  they's  money  at  t'other  eend  of  the 
race  I  can  run  like  sixty  fer  a  spell.  'Tain't 
my  common  gait,  howsumever." 

"If  you'll  take  this  paper,"  said  Gray, 
"and  get  it  to  the  county  clerk's  of^ce  be 
fore  anybody  else  gets  there  from  this  boat, 
I'll  give  you  five  dollars." 

"Honor  bright?"  asked  the  chap,  taking 
the  paper,  drawing  a  long  breath,  and  look- 
193 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

ing  as  though  he  had  discovered  a  gold 
mine. 

"Honor  bright,"  answered  Gray.  "You 
must  jump  off  first  of  all,  for  there's  a  boy 
aboard  that  will  beat  you  if  he  can.  No 
pay  if  you  don't  win." 

"Which  is  the  one  that'll  run  ag'in'  me?" 
asked  the  long-legged  fellow. 

Gray  described  Jack,  and  told  the  young 
man  to  go  out  forward  and  he  would  see 
him.  Gray  was  not  willing  to  be  seen  with 
the  "wharf -rat,"  lest  suspicions  should  be 
awakened  in  Jack  Dudley's  mind.  But 
after  the  shabby  young  man  had  gone  for 
ward  and  looked  at  Jack,  he  came  back 
with  a  doubtful  air. 

"That's  Hoosier  Jack,  as  we  used  to  call 
him,"  said  the  shabby  young  man.  "He 
an'  two  more  used  to  row  a  boat  acrost  the 
river  every  day  to  go  to  ole  Niles's  school. 
He's  a  hard  one  to  beat, — they  say  he  used 
194 


A  FOOT-RACE  FOR  MONEY 

to  lay  the  whole  school  out  on  prisoners' 
base,  and  that  he  could  leave  'cm  all  be 
hind  on  fox." 

"You  think  you  can't  do  it,  thea?" 
asked  Gray. 

"Gimme  a  little  start  and  I  reckon  I'll 
fetch  it.  It's  up-hill  part  of  the  way  and 
he  may  lose  his  wind,  for  it's  a  good  half- 
mile.  You  must  make  a  row  with  him  at 
the  gang-plank,  er  do  somethin'  to  kinder 
hold  him  back.  The  wind's  down  stream 
to-day  and  the  boat's  shore  to  swing  in  a 
little  aft.  I'll  jump  for  it  and  yuu  keep 
him  back." 

To  this  Gray  assented. 

As  the  shabby  young  fellow  had  pre 
dicted,  the  boat  did  swing  around  in  the 
wind,  and  have  some  trouble  in  bringing 
her  bow  to  the  wharf-boat.  The  captain 
stood  on  the  hurricane-deck  calling  to  the 
pilot  to  "back  her,"  "stop  her,"  "go  ahead 
195 


THE  HOOSIKR  SCHOOL-BOY 

on  her,"  "go  ahead  on  yer  labberd,"  and 
"back  on  yer  stabberd."  Now,  just  as 
the  captain  was  backing  the  starboard 
wheel  and  going  ahead  on  his  larboard,  so 
as  to  bring  the  boat  around  right,  Mr. 
Gray  turned  on  Jack. 

"What  are  you  treading  on  my  toes  for, 
you  impudent  young  rascal?"  he  broke  out. 

Jack  colored  and  was  about  to  reply 
sharply,  when  he  caught  sight  of  the  shabby 
young  fellow,  who  just  then  leaped  from 
the  gunwale  of  the  boat  amidships  and 
barely  reached  the  wharf.  Jack  guessed 
why  Gray  had  tried  to  irritate  him, — he 
saw  that  the  well-known  "wharf -rat"  was 
to  be  his  competitor.  But  what  could  he 
do?  The  wind  held  the  bow  of  the  boat 
out,  the  gang-plank  which  had  been  pushed 
out  ready  to  reach  the  wharf -boat  was  still 
firmly  grasped  by  the  deck-hands,  and  the 
farther  end  of  it  was  six  feet  from  the 
196 


A  FOOT-RACE  FOR  MONEY 

wharf,  and  much  above  it.  It  would  be 
some  minutes  before  any  one  could  leave 
the  boat  in  the  regular  way.  There  was 
only  one  chance  to  defeat  the  rascally 
Gray.  Jack  concluded  to  take  it. 

He  ran  out  upon  the  plank  amidst  the 
harsh  cries  of  the  deck-hands,  who  tried 
to  stop  him,  and  the  oaths  of  the  mate, 
who  thundered  at  him,  with  the  stern 
order  of  the  captain  from  the  upper  deck, 
who  called  out  to  him  to  go  back. 

But,  luckily,  the  steady  pulling  ahead  of 
the  larboard  engine,  and  the  backing  of  the 
starboard,  began  just  then  to  bring  the 
boat  around,  the  plank  sank  down  a  little 
under  Jack's  weight,  and  Jack  made  the 
leap  to  the  wharf,  hearing  the  confused 
cries,  orders,  oaths,  and  shouts  from  be 
hind  him,  as  he  pushed  through  the  crowd. 

"Stop  that  thief !"  cried  Francis  Gray 
to  the  people  on  the  wharf-boat,  but  in 

197 


THE  HOOSIER   SCHOOL-BOY 

vain.  Jack  glided  swiftly  through  the 
people,  and  got  on  shore  before  anybody 
could  check  him.  He  charged  up  the  hill 
after  the  shabby  young  fellow,  who  had  a 
decided  lead,  while  some  of  the  men  on  the 
wharf-boat  pursued  them  both,  uncertain 
which  was  the  thief.  Such  another  pell- 
mell  race  Port  William  had  never  seen. 
Windows  flew  up  and  heads  went  out. 
Small  boys  joined  the  pursuing  crowd,  and 
dogs  barked  indiscriminately  and  uncer 
tainly  at  the  heels  of  everybody.  There 
were  cries  of  "Hurrah  for  long  Ben !"  and 
"Hurrah  for  Hoosier  Jack!"  Some  of 
Jack's  old  school-mates  essayed  to  stop 
him  to  find  out  what  it  was  all  about,  but 
he  would  not  relax  a  muscle,  and  he  had 
no  time  to  answer  any  questions.  He  saw 
the  faces  of  the  people  dimly;  he  heard  the 
crowd  crying  after  him,  "Stop,  thief !"  he 
caught  a  glimpse  of  his  old  teacher,  Mr. 
198 


A  FOOT-RACE  FOR  MONEY 

Niles,  regarding  him  with  curiosity  as  he 
darted  by;  he  saw  an  anxious  look  in  Judge 
Kane's  face  as  he  passed  him  on  a  street 
corner.  But  Jack  held  his  eyes  on  Long 
Ben,  whom  he  pursued  as  a  dog  does  a  fox. 
He  had  steadily  gained  on  the  fellow,  but 
Ben  had  too  much  the  start,  and,  unless  he 
should  give  out,  there  would  be  little  chance 
for  Jack  to  overtake  him.  One  thinks 
quickly  in  such  moments.  Jack  remem 
bered  that  there  were  two  ways  of  reach 
ing  the  county  clerk's  office.  To  keep  the 
street  around  the  block  was  the  natural 
way, — to  take  an  alley  through  the  square 
was  neither  longer  nor  shorter.  But  by 
running  down  the  alley  he  would  deprive 
Long  Ben  of  the  spur  of  seeing  his  pursuer, 
and  he  might  even  make  him  think  that 
Jack  had  given  out.  Jack  had  played  this 
trick  when  playing  hound  and  fox,  and  at 
any  rate  he  would  by  this  turn  shake  off 
199 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

the  crowd.  So  into  the  alley  he  darted, 
and  the  bewildered  pursuers  kept  on  cry 
ing  "Stop,  thief!'*  after  Long  Ben,  whose 
reputation  was  none  of  the  best.  Some 
body  ahead  tried  to  catch  the  shabby 
young  fellow,  and  this  forced  Ben  to  make 
a  slight  curve,  which  gave  Jack  the  advan 
tage,  so  that  just  as  Ben  neared  the  office, 
Jack  rounded  a  corner  out  of  an  alley,  and 
entered  ahead  of  him,  dashed  up  to  the 
clerk's  desk  and  deposited  the  judgment. 

"For  record,"  he  gasped. 

The  next  instant  the  shabby  young  fel 
low  pushed  forward  the  mortgage. 

"Mine  first!"  cried  Long  Ben. 

"I'll  take  yours  when  I  get  this  entered," 
said  the  clerk  quietly,  as  became  a  public 
officer. 

"I  got  here  first,"  said  Long  Ben. 

But  the  clerk  looked  at  the  clock  and 
entered  the  date  on  the  back  of  Jack's 
200 


A  FOOT-RACE  FOR  MONEY 

paper,  putting  "one  o'clock  and  eighteen 
minutes"  after  the  date.  Then  he  wrote 
"one  o'clock  and  nineteen  minutes"  on  the 
paper  which  Long  Ben  handed  him.  The 
office  was  soon  crowded  with  people  dis 
cussing  the  result  of  the  race,  and  a  part 
of  them  were  even  now  in  favor  of  seizing 
one  or  the  other  of  the  runners  for  a  theft, 
which  some  said  had  been  committed  on 
the  packet,  and  others  declared  was  com 
mitted  on  the  wharf-boat.  Francis  Gray 
came  in,  and  could  not  conceal  his  cha 
grin. 

"I  meant  to  do  the  fair  thing  by  you/' 
he  said  to  Jack,  severely,  "but  now  you'll 
never  get  a  cent  out  of  me." 

"I'd  rather  have  the  law  on  men  like 
you,  than  have  a  thousand  of  your  sort  of 
fair  promises,"  said  Jack. 

"I've  a  mind  to  strike  you,"  said  Gray. 

"The  Kentucky  law  is  hard  on  a  man 
201 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

who  strikes  a  minor,"  said  Judge  Kane, 
who  had  entered  at  that  moment. 

Mr.  Niles  came  in  to  learn  what  was 
the  matter,  and  Judge  Kane,  after  listening 
quietly  to  the  talk  of  the  people,  until  the 
excitement  subsided,  took  Jack  over  to 
his  house,  whence  the  boy  trudged  home 
in  the  late  afternoon  full  of  hopefulness. 

Gray's  land  realized  as  much  as  Mr. 
Beal  expected,  and  Jack  studied  hard  all 
summer,  so  as  to  get  as  tar  ahead  as  pos 
sible  by  the  time  school  should  begin  in 
the  autumn. 


202 


CHAPTER  XXI 

THE  NEW  TEACHER 

THE  new  teacher  who  was  employed  to 
take  the  Greenbank  school  in  the  autumn 
was  a  young  man  from  college.  Standing 
behind  the  desk  hitherto  occupied  by  the 
grim-faced  Mr.  Ball,  young  Williams  looked 
very  mild  by  contrast.  He  was  evidently 
a  gentle-spirited  man  as  compared  with 
the  old  master,  and  King  Pewee  and  his 
crowd  were  gratified  in  noting  this  fact. 
They  could  have  their  own  way  with  such 
a  master  as  that!  When  he  called  the 
school  to  order,  there  remained  a  bustle  of 
curiosity  and  mutual  recognition  among 
the  children.  Riley  and  Pewee  kept  up  a 
little  noise  by  way  of  defiance.  They  had 
heard  that  the  new  master  did  not  intend 
203 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

to  whip.  Now  he  stood  quietly  behind  his 
desk,  and  waited  a  few  moments  in  silence 
for  the  whispering  group  to  be  still.  Then 
he  slowly  raised  and  levelled  his  finger  at 
Riley  and  Pewee,  but  still  said  nothing. 
There  was  something  so  firm  and  quiet 
about  his  motion — something  that  said,  "I 
will  wait  all  day,  but  you  must  be  still  "- 
that  the  boys  could  not  resist  it. 

By  the  time  they  were  quiet,  two  of  the 
girls  had  got  into  a  titter  over  something, 
and  the  forefinger  was  aimed  at  them.  The 
silent  man  made  the  pupils  understand 
that  he  was  not  to  be  trifled  with. 

When  at  length  there  was  quiet,  he  made 
every  one  lay  down  book  or  slate  and  face 
around  toward  him.  Then  with  his  point 
ing  finger,  or  with  a  little  slap  of  his  hands 
together,  or  with  a  word  or  two  at  most, 
he  got  the  school  still  again. 

"I  hope  we  shall  be  friends/'  he  said,  in 
204 


THE  NEW  TEACHER 

a  voice  full  of  kindliness.    "All  I  want  is 

But  at  this  point  Riley  picked  up  his 
slate  and  book,  and  turned  away.  The 
master  snapped  his  fingers,  but  Riley  af 
fected  not  to  hear  him. 

"That  young  man  will  put  down  his 
slate."  The  master  spoke  in  a  low  tone, 
as  one  who  expected  to  be  obeyed,  and  the 
slate  was  reluctantly  put  upon  the  desk. 

"When  I  am  talking  to  you,  I  want  you 
to  hear,"  he  went  on,  very  quietly.  "I  am 
paid  to  teach  you.  One  of  the  things  I 
have  to  teach  you  is  good  manners.  You," 
pointing  to  Riley,  "are  old  enough  to  know 
better  than  to  take  your  slate  when  your 
teacher  is  speaking,  but  perhaps  you  have 
never  been  taught  what  are  good  manners. 
I'll  excuse  you  this  time.  Now,  you  all 
see  those  switches  hanging  here  behind  me. 
I  did  not  put  them  there.  I  do  not  say 
205 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

that  I  shall  not  use  them.  Some  boys 
have  to  be  whipped,  I  suppose, — like  mules, 
— and  when  I  have  tried,  I  may  find  that  I 
cannot  get  on  without  the  switches,  but  I 
hope  not  to  have  to  use  them." 

Here  Riley,  encouraged  by  the  master's 
mildness  and  irritated  by  the  rebuke  he  had 
received,  began  to  make  figures  on  his  slate. 

"Bring  me  that  slate/'  said  the  teacher. 

Riley  was  happy  that  he  had  succeeded 
in  starting  a  row.  He  took  his  slate  and 
his  arithmetic,  and  shuffled  up  to  the  mas 
ter  in  a  half -indolent,  half -insolent  way. 

"Why  do  you  take  up  your  work  when 
I  tell  you  not  to?"  asked  the  new  teacher. 

"Because  I  didn't  want  to  waste  all  my 
morning.  I  wanted  to  do  my  sums." 

"You    are    a    remarkably    industrious 

youth,    I    take   it."    The    young   master 

looked  Riley  over,  as  he  said  this,  from 

head  to  foot.    The  whole  school  smiled, 

206 


THE  NEW  TEACHER 

for  there  was  no  lazier  boy  than  this  same 
Riley.  "I  suppose/'  the  teacher  contin 
ued,  "that  you  are  the  best  scholar  in 
school — the  bright  and  shining  light  of 
Greenbank." 

Here  there  was  a  general  titter  at  Riley. 

"I  cannot  have  you  sit  away  down  at 
the  other  end  of  the  school-room  and  hide 
your  excellent  example  from  the  rest. 
Stand  right  up  here  by  me  and  cipher,  that 
all  the  school  may  see  how  industrious 
you  are/' 

Riley  grew  very  red  in  the  face  and  pre 
tended  to  "cipher,"  holding  his  book  in 
his  hand. 

"Now/'  said  the  new  teacher,  "I  have 
but  just  one  rule  for  this  school,  and  I  will 
write  it  on  the  blackboard  that  all  may 
see  it." 

He  took  chalk  and  wrote: 

DO  RIGHT. 
207 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

"That  is  all.  Let  us  go  to  our  les 
sons." 

For  the  first  two  hours  that  Riley  stood 
on  the  floor  he  pretended  to  enjoy  it.  But 
when  recess  came  and  went  and  Mr.  Wil 
liams  did  not  send  him  to  his  seat,  he  be 
gan  to  shift  from  one  foot  to  the  other  and 
from  his  heels  to  his  toes,  and  to  change 
his  slate  from  the  right  hand  to  the  left. 
His  class  was  called,  and  after  recitation 
he  was  sent  back  to  his  place.  He  stood  it 
as  best  he  could  until  the  noon  recess,  but 
when,  at  the  beginning  of  the  afternoon 
session,  Mr.  Williams  again  called  his  "ex 
cellent  scholar "  and  set  him  up,  Riley 
broke  down  and  said: 

"I  think  you  might  let  me  go  now." 

"Are  you  tired?"  asked  the  cruel  Mr. 
"Williams. 

"Yes,  I  am,"  and  Riley  hung  his  head, 
while  the  rest  smiled. 
208 


THE  NEW  TEACHER 

"And  are  you  ready  to  do  what  the  good 
order  of  the  school  requires?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

"Very  well;  you  can  go." 

The  chopfallen  Riley  went  back  to  his 
seat,  convinced  that  it  would  not  do  to 
rebel  against  the  new  teacher,  even  if  he 
did  not  use  the  beech  switches. 

But  Mr.  Williams  was  also  quick  to  de 
tect  the  willing  scholar.  He  gave  Jack 
extra  help  on  his  Latin  after  school  was 
out,  and  Jack  grew  very  proud  of  the 
teacher's  affection  for  him. 


209 


CHAPTER  XXII 

CHASING  THE  FOX 

ALL  the  boys  in  the  r.ver  towns  thirty 
years  ago — and  therefore  the  boys  in  Green- 
bank,  also — took  a  great  interest  in  the 
steam-boats  which  plied  up  and  down  the 
Ohio.  Each  had  his  favorite  boat,  and 
boasted  of  her  speed  and  excellence.  Every 
one  of  them  envied  those  happy  fellows 
whose  lot  it  was  to  "run  on  the  river "  as 
cabin-boys.  Boats  were  a  common  topic  of 
conversation — their  build,  their  engines, 
their  speed,  their  officers,  their  mishaps, 
and  all  the  incidents  of  their  history. 

So  it  was  that  from  the  love  of  steam 
boats,  which  burned  so  brightly  in  the 
bosom  of  the  boy  who  lived  on  the  banks 
210 


CHASING  THE  FOX 

of  that  great  and  lovely  river,  there  grew 
up  the  peculiar  game  of  "boats'  names/' 
I  think  the  game  was  started  at  Louisville 
or  New  Albany,  where  the  falls  interrupt 
navigation,  and  where  many  boats  of  the 
upper  and  lower  rivers  are  assembled. 

One  day,  as  the  warm  air  of  Indian  sum 
mer  in  this  mild  climate  made  itself  felt, 
the  boys  assembled,  on  the  evergreen  "  blue- 
grass,  "  after  the  snack  at  the  noon  recess, 
to  play  boats'  names. 

Through  Jack's  influence,  Columbus, 
who  did  not  like  to  play  with  the  ABC 
boys,  was  allowed  to  take  the  handkerchief 
and  give  out  the  first  name.  All  the  rest 
stood  up  in  a  row  like  a  spelling-class,  while 
little  Columbus,  standing  in  front  of  them, 
held  a  knotted  handkerchief  with  which  to 
scourge  them  when  the  name  should  be 
guessed.  The  arm  which  held  the  hand 
kerchief  was  so  puny  that  the  boys  laughed 
211 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

to  see  the  feeble  lad  stand  there  in  a  threat 
ening  attitude. 

"I  say,  Lum,  don't  hit  too  hard,  now; 
my  back  is  tender/'  said  Bob  Holliday. 

"Give  us  an  easy  one  to  guess/'  said 
Riley,  coaxingly. 

Columbus,  having  come  from  the  back 
country,  did  not  know  the  names  of  half 
a  dozen  boats,  and  what  he  knew  about 
were  those  which  touched  daily  at  the 
wharf  of  Greenbank. 

"F n,"  he  said. 

"Fashion,"  cried  all  the  boys  at  once, 
breaking  into  unrestrained  mirth  at  the 
simplicity  that  gave  them  the  name  of 
Captain  Glenn's  little  Cincinnati  and  Port 
William  packet,  which  landed  daily  at  the 
village  wharf.  Columbus  now  made  a 
dash  at  the  boys,  who  were  obliged  to  run 
to  the  school-house  and  back  whenever  a 
name  was  guessed,  suffering  a  beating  all 
212 


CHASING  THE  FOX 

the  way  from  the  handkerchief  of  the  one 
who  had  given  out  the  name,  though,  in 
deed,  the  punishment  Lum  was  able  to 
give  was  very  slight.  It  was  doubtful  who 
had  guessed  first,  since  the  whole  party 
had  cried  "Fashion"  almost  together,  but 
it  was  settled  at  last  in  favor  of  Harry 
Weathervane,  who  was  sure  to  give  out 
hard  names,  since  he  had  been  to  Cincin 
nati  recently,  and  had  gone  along  the  levee 
reading  the  names  of  those  boats  that  did 
business  above  that  city,  and  so  were  quite 
unknown,  unless  by  report,  to  the  boys  of 
Greenbank. 

"A A s,"  were  the  three  letters 

which  Harry  gave,  and  Ben  Berry  guessed 
"Archibald  Ananias,"  and  Tom  Holcroft 
said  it  was  "Amanda  Amos,"  and  at  last 
all  gave  it  up;  whereupon  Harry  told  them 
it  was  "Alvin  Adams,"  and  proceeded  to 
give  out  another. 

213 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

"C A-    -  P x>"  he  said  next 

time. 

"Caps,"  said  Riley,  mistaking  the  x  for 
an  s;  and  then  Bob  Holliday  suggested 
"Hats  and  Caps,"  and  Jack  wanted  to 
have  it  "Boots  and  Shoes."  But  Johnny 
Meline  remembered  that  he  had  read  of 
such  a  name  for  a  ship  in  his  Sunday- 
school  lesson  of  the  previous  Sunday,  and 
he  guessed  that  a  steamboat  might  bear 
that  same. 

"I  know,"  said  Johnny,  "it's  Castor " 

"Oil,"  suggested  Jack. 

"No— Castor  and  P,  x,— Pollux— Castor 
and  Pollux— it's  a  Bible  name." 

"You're  not  giving  us  the  name  of 
Noah's  ark,  are  you?"  asked  Bob. 

"I   say,   boys,   that  isn't   fair   a   bit," 

growled    Pewee,    in    all    earnestness.    "I 

don't    hardly    believe    that    Bible    ship's 

a-going  now."    Things  were  mixed  in  Pe- 

214 


CHASING  THE  FOX 

wee's  mind,  but  he  had  a  vague  notion 
that  Bible  times  were  as  much  as  fifty 
years  ago.  While  he  stood  doubting,  Harry 
began  to  whip  him  with  the  handkerchief, 
saying,  "I  saw  her  at  Cincinnati,  last  week. 
She  runs  to  Maysville  and  Parkersburg, 
you  goose/' 

After,  many  names  had  been  guessed, 
and  each  guesser  had  taken  his  turn,  Ben 
Berry  had  to  give  out.  He  had  just  heard 
the  name  of  a  "lower  country"  boat,  and 
was  sure  that  it  would  not  be  guessed. 

"C p r,"  he  said. 

"Oh,  I  know,"  said  Jack,  who  had  been 
studying  the  steam-boat  column  of  an  old 
Louisville  paper  that  very  morning,  "it's 
the — the—  '  and  he  put  his  hands  over  his 
ears,  closed  his  eyes,  and  danced  around, 
trying  to  remember,  while  all  the  rest  stood 
and  laughed  at  his  antics.  "Now  I've  got 
it,— the  'Cornplanter' !" 
215 


THE  HOOSIER   SCHOOL-BOY 

And  Ben  Berry  whipped  the  boys  across 
the  road  and  back,  after  which  Jack  took 
the  handkerchief. 

"Oh,  say,  boys,  this  is  a  poor  game;  lei's 
play  fox,"  Bob  suggested.  "Jack's  got  the 
handkerchief,  let  him  be  the  first  fox." 

So  Jack  took  a  hundred  yards*  start, 
and  all  the  boys  set  out  after  him.  The 
fox  led  the  hounds  across  the  commons, 
over  the  bars,  past  the  "brick  pond,"  as  it 
was  called,  up  the  lane  into  Moro's  pas 
ture,  along  the  hillside  to  the  west  across 
Dater's  fence  into  Betts's  pasture;  thence 
over  into  the  large  woods  pasture  of  the 
Glade  farm.  In  every  successive  field  some 
of  the  hounds  had  run  off  to  the  flank,  and 
by  this  means  every  attempt  of  Jack's  to 
turn  toward  the  river,  and  thus  fetch  a 
circuit  for  home,  had  been  foiled.  They 
had  cut  him  off  from  turning  through 
Moro's  orchard  or  Betts's  vineyard,  and  so 
216 


CHASING  THE  FOX 

there  was  nothing  for  the  fleet-footed  fox 
but  to  keep  steadily  to  the  west  and  give 
his  pursuers  no  chance  to  make  a  cut-off 
on  him.  But  every  now  and  then  he  made 
a  feint  of  turning,  which  threw  the  others 
out  of  a  straight  track.  Once  in  the  woods 
pasture,  Jack  found  himself  out  of  breath, 
having  run  steadily  for  a  rough  mile  and  a 
half,  part  of  it  up-hill.  He  was  yet  forty 
yards  ahead  of  Bob  Holliday  and  Riley, 
who  led  the  hounds.  Dashing  into  a 
narrow  path  through  the  underbrush,  Jack 
ran  into  a  little  clump  of  bushes  and  hid 
behind  a  large  black-walnut  log. 

Riley  and  Holliday  came  within  six  feet 
of  him,  some  of  the  others  passed  to  the 
south  of  him  and  some  to  the  north,  but 
all  failed  to  discover  his  lurking-place. 
Soon  Jack  could  hear  them  beating  about 
the  bushes  beyond  him. 

This  was  his  time.  Having  recovered  his 
217 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

wind,  he  crept  out  southward  until  he  came 
to  the  foot  of  the  hill,  and  entered  Glade's 
lane,  heading  straight  for  the  river  across 
the  wide  plain.  Pewee,  who  had  perched 
himself  on  a  fence  to  rest,  caught  sight  of 
Jack  first,  and  soon  the  whole  pack  were 
in  full  cry  after  him,  down  the  long,  narrow, 
elder-bordered  lane.  Bob  Holliday  and 
Riley,  the  fleetest  of  foot,  climbed  over  the 
high  stake-and-rider  fence  into  Betts's  corn 
field,  and  cut  off  a  diagonal  to  prevent 
Jack's  getting  back  toward  the  school- 
house.  Seeing  this  movement,  Jack,  who 
already  had  made  an  extraordinary  run, 
crossed  the  fence  himself,  and  tried  to 
make  a  cut-off  in  spite  of  them;  but  Riley 
already  had  got  in  ahead  of  him,  and  Jack, 
seeing  the  boys  close  behind  and  before 
him,  turned  north  again  toward  the  hill, 
got  back  into  the  lane,  which  was  now  de 
serted,  and  climbed  into  Glade's  meadow 
218 


CHASING  THE  FOX 

on  the  west  side  of  the  lane.  He  now  had 
a  chance  to  fetch  a  sweep  around  toward 
the  river  again,  though  the  whole  troop  of 
boys  were  between  him  and  the  school- 
house.  Fairly  headed  off  on  the  east,  he 
made  a  straight  run  south  for  the  river 
shore,  striking  into  a  deep  gully,  from  which 
he  came  out  panting  upon  the  beach,  where 
he  had  just  time  to  hide  himself  in  a  hol 
low  sycamore,  hoping  that  the  boys  would 
get  to  the  westward  and  give  him  a  chance 
to  run  up  the  river  shore  for  the  school- 
house. 

But  one  cannot  play  the  same  trick 
twice.  Some  of  the  boys  stationed  them 
selves  so  as  to  intercept  Jack's  retreat 
toward  the  school-house,  while  the  rest 
searched  for  him,  beating  up  and  down  the 
gully,  and  up  and  down  the  beach,  until 
they  neared  the  hollow  sycamore.  Jack 
made  a  sharp  dash  to  get  through  them, 
219 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

but  was  headed  off  and  caught  by  Pewee. 
Just  as  Jack  was  caught,  and  Pewee  was 
about  to  start  homeward  as  fox,  the  boys 
caught  sight  of  two  steam-boats  racing 
down  the  river.  The  whole  party  was  soon 
perched  on  a  fallen  sycamore,  watching 
first  the  "Swiftsure"  and  then  the  "Ben 
Franklin/'  while  the  black  smoke  poured 
from  their  chimneys.  So  fascinated  were 
they  with  this  exciting  contest  that  they 
stayed  half  an  hour  waiting  to  see  which 
should  beat.  At  length,  as  the  boats  passed 
out  of  sight,  with  the  "Swiftsure"  leading 
her  competitor,  it  suddenly  occurred  to 
Jack  that  it  must  be  later  than  the  school- 
hour.  The  boys  looked  aghast  at  one 
another  a  moment  on  hearing  him  mention 
this;  then  they  glanced  at  the  sun,  already 
declining  in  the  sky,  and  set  out  for  school, 
trotting  swiftly  in  spite  of  their  fatigue. 
What  would  the  master  say?  Pewee 
220 


CHASING  THE  FOX 

said  he  didn't  care,— it  wasn't  Old  Ball, 
and  they  wouldn't  get  a  whipping,  anyway. 
But  Jack  thought  that  it  was  too  bad  to 
lose  the  confidence  of  Mr.  Williams. 


221 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

CALLED  TO  ACCOUNT 

SUCCESSFUL  hounds,  having  caught  their 
fox,  ought  to  have  come  home  in  triumph; 
but,  instead  of  that,  they  came  home  like 
dogs  that  had  been  killing  sheep,  their 
heads  hanging  down  in  a  guilty  and  self- 
betraying  way. 

Jack  walked  into  the  school-house  first. 
It  was  an  hour  and  a  half  past  the  time 
for  the  beginning  of  school.  He  tried  to 
look  unconcerned  as  he  went  to  his  seat. 
There  stood  the  teacher,  with  his  face  very 
calm  but  very  pale,  and  Jack  felt  his  heart 
sink. 

One  by  one  the  laggards  filed  into  the 
school-room,  while  the  awe-stricken  girls  on 
222 


CALLED   TO  ACCOUNT 

the  opposite  benches,  and  the  little  ABC 
boys,  watched  the  guilty  sinners  take  their 
places,  prepared  to  meet  their  fate. 

Riley  came  in  with  a  half -insolent  smile 
on  his  face,  as  if  to  say:  "I  don't  care/' 
Pewee  was  sullen  and  bull-doggish.  Ben 
Berry  looked  the  sneaking  fellow  he  was, 
and  Harry  Weathervane  tried  to  remember 
that  his  father  was  a  school-trustee.  Bob 
Holliday  couldn't  help  laughing  in  a  foolish 
way.  Columbus  had  fallen  out  of  the  race 
before  he  got  to  the  "brick-pond,"  and  so 
had  returned  in  time  to  be  punctual  when 
school  resumed  its  session. 

During  all  the  time  that  the  boys,  heated 
with  their  exercise  and  blushing  with  shame, 
were  filing  in,  Mr.  Williams  stood  with  set 
face  and  regarded  them.  He  was  very 
much  excited,  and  so  I  suppose  did  not 
dare  to  reprove  them  just  then.  He  called 
the  classes  and  heard  them  in  rapid  suc- 
223 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

cession,  until  it  was  time  for  the  spelling- 
class,  which  comprised  all  but  the  very 
youngest  pupils.  On  this  day,  instead  of 
calling  the  spelling-class,  he  said,  evidently 
with  great  effort  to  control  himself:  "The 
girls  will  keep  their  seats.  The  boys  will 
take  their  places  in  the  spelling-class." 

Riley's  lower  jaw  fell— he  was  sure  that 
the  master  meant  to  flog  them  all.  He 
was  glad  he  was  not  at  the  head  of  the 
class.  Ben  Berry  could  hardly  drag  his 
feet  to  his  place,  and  poor  Jack  was  filled 
with  confusion.  When  the  boys  were  all 
in  place,  the  master  walked  up  and  down 
the  line  and  scrutinized  them,  while  Riley 
cast  furtive  glances  at  the  dusty  old  beech 
switches  on  the  wall,  wondering  which  one 
the  master  would  use,  and  Pewee  was  try 
ing  to  guess  whether  Mr.  Williams's  arm 
was  strong,  and  whether  he  "would  make 
a  fellow  take  off  his  coat"  or  not. 
224 


CALLED  TO  ACCOUNT 

"Columbus/'  said  the  teacher,  "you  can 
take  your  seat/' 

Riley  shook  in  his  shoes,  thinking  that 
this  certainly  meant  a  whipping.  He  be 
gan  to  frame  excuses  in  his  mind,  by  which 
to  try  to  lighten  his  punishment. 

But  the  master  did  not  take  down  his 
switches.  He  only  talked.  But  such  a 
talk!  He  told  the  boys  how  worthless  a 
man  was  who  could  not  be  trusted,  and 
how  he  had  hoped  for  a  school  full  of  boys 
that  could  be  relied  on.  He  thought  there 
were  some  boys,  at  least — and  this  remark 
struck  Jack  to  the  heart — that  there  were 
some  boys  in  the  school  who  would  rather 
be  treated  as  gentlemen  than  beaten  with 
ox-gads.  But  he  was  now  disappointed. 
All  of  them  seemed  equally  willing  to  take 
advantage  of  his  desire  to  avoid  whipping 
them;  and  all  of  them  had  shown  them 
selves  unfit  to  be  trusted. 
225 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

Here  he  paused  long  enough  to  let  the 
full  weight  of  his  censure  enter  their  minds. 
Then  he  began  on  a  new  tack.  He  had 
hoped  that  he  might  have  their  friendship. 
He  had  thought  that  they  cared  a  little  for 
his  good  opinion.  But  now  they  had  be 
trayed  him.  All  the  town  was  looking  to 
see  whether  he  would  succeed  in  conduct 
ing  his  school  without  whipping.  A  good 
many  would  be  glad  to  see  him  fail.  To 
day  they  would  be  saying  all  over  Green- 
bank  that  the  new  teacher  couldn't  manage 
his  school.  Then  he  told  the  boys  that 
while  they  were  sitting  on  the  trunk  of  the 
fallen  sycamore  looking  at  the  steam-boat 
race,  one  of  the  trustees,  Mr.  Weathervane, 
had  driven  past  and  had  seen  them  there. 
He  had  stopped  to  complain  to  the  master. 
"Now,"  said  the  master,  "I  have  found 
how  little  you  care  for  me." 

This  was  very  sharp  talk,  and  it  made 
the  boys  angry.    Particularly  did  Jack  re- 
226 


CALLED  TO  ACCOUNT 

sent  any  intimation  that  he  was  not  to  be 
trusted.  But  the  new  master  was  excited 
and  naturally  spoke  severely.  Nor  did  he 
give  the  boys  a  chance  to  explain  at  that 
time. 

"You  have  been  out  of  school,"  he  said, 
"one  hour  and  thirty-one  minutes.  That 
is  about  equal  to  six  fifteen-minute  recesses 
— to  the  morning  and  afternoon  recesses 
for  three  days.  I  shall  have  to  keep  you 
in  at  those  six  recesses  to  make  up  the 
time,  and  in  addition,  as  a  punishment,  I 
shall  keep  you  in  school  half  an  hour  after 
the  usual  time  of  dismission,  for  three 
days." 

Here  Jack  made  a  motion  to  speak. 

"No,"  said  the  master,  "I  will  not  hear 
a  word,  now.  Go  home  and  think  it  over. 
To-morrow  I  mean  to  ask  each  one  of  you 
to  explain  his  conduct." 

With  this,  he  dismissed  the  school,  and 
the  boys  went  out  as  angry  as  a  hive  of 
227 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

bees  that  have  been  disturbed.  Each  one 
made  his  speech.  Jack  thought  it  "mean 
that  the  master  should  say  they  were  not 
fit  to  be  trusted.  He  wouldn't  have  stayed 
out  if  he'd  known  it  was  school-time." 

Bob  Holliday  said  "the  young  master 
was  a  blisterer,"  and  then  he  laughed  good- 
naturedly. 

Harry  Weathervane  was  angry,  and  so 
were  all  the  rest.  At  length  it  was  agreed 
that  they  didn't  want  to  be  cross-questioned 
about  it,  and  that  it  was  better  that  some 
body  should  write  something  that  should 
give  Mr.  Williams  a  piece  of  their  mind, 
and  show  him  how  hard  he  was  on  boys 
that  didn't  mean  any  harm,  but  only  for 
got  themselves.  And  Jack  was  selected  to 
do  the  writing. 

Jack  made  up  his  mind  that  the  paper 
he  would  write  should  be  "a  scorcher." 


228 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

AN  APOLOGY 

OF  course,  there  was  a  great  deal  of  talk 
in  the  village.  The  I-told-you-so  people 
were  quite  delighted.  Old  Mother  Horn 
"always  knew  that  boys  couldn't  be  man 
aged  without  switching.  Didn't  the  Bible 
or  somebody  say:  'Just  as  the  twig  is  bent 
the  boy's  inclined?'  And  if  you  don't 
bend  your  twig,  what'll  become  of  your 
boy?" 

The  loafers  and  loungers  and  gad-abouts 
and  gossips  talked  a  great  deal  about  the 
failure  of  the  new  plan.  They  were  sure 
that  Mr.  Ball  would  be  back  in  that  school- 
house  before  the  term  was  out,  unless  Wil 
liams  should  whip  a  good  deal  more  than 
229 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

he  promised  to.  The  boys  would  just  drive 
him  out. 

Jack  told  his  mother,  with  a  grieved  face, 
how  harsh  the  new  master  had  been,  and 
how  he  had  even  said  they  were  not  fit  to 
be  trusted. 

"That's  a  very  harsh  word,"  said  Mrs. 
Dudley,  "but  let  us  make  some  allowances. 
Mr.  Williams  is  on  trial  before  the  town, 
and  he  finds  himself  nearly  ruined  by  the 
thoughtlessness  of  the  boys.  He  had  to  wait 
an  hour  and  a  half,  with  half  of  the  school 
gone.  Think  how  much  he  must  have 
suffered  in  that  time.  And  then,  to  have 
to  take  a  rebuke  from  Mr.  Weathervane 
besides,  must  have  stung  him  to  the  quick." 

"Yes,  that's  so,"  said  Jack,  "but  then 
he  had  no  business  to  take  it  for  granted 
that  we  did  it  on  purpose." 

And  Jack  went  about  his  chores,  trying 
to  think  of  some  way  of  writing  to  the 
230 


AN  APOLOGY 

master  an  address  which  should  be  severe, 
but  not  too  severe.  He  planned  many 
things  but  gave  them  up.  He  lay  awake  in 
the  night  thinking  about  it,  and,  at  last, 
when  he  had  cooled  off,  he  came  to  the 
conclusion  that,  as  the  boys  had  been  the 
first  offenders,  they  should  take  the  first 
step  toward  a  reconciliation.  But  whether 
he  could  persuade  the  angry  boys  to  see  it 
in  that  light,  he  did  not  know. 

When  morning  came,  he  wrote  a  very 
short  paper,  somewhat  in  this  fashion: 

MR.  WILLIAMS: 

Dear  Sir:  We  are  very  sorry  for  what  we  did 
yesterday,  and  for  the  trouble  we  have  given 
you.  We  are  willing  to  take  the  punishment, 
for  we  think  we  deserve  it;  but  we  hope  you 
will  not  think  that  we  did  it  on  purpose,  for  we 
did  not,  and  we  don't  like  to  have  you  think  so. 
Respectfully  submitted. 

Jack  carried  this  in  the  first  place  to  his 
faithful  friend,  Bob  Holliday,  who  read  it. 
231 


THE  BOOSTER  SCHOOL-BOY 

"Oh,  you've  come  down,  have  you?" 
said  Bob. 

"I  thought  we  ought  to/'  said  Jack. 
"We  did  give  him  a  great  deal  of  trouble, 
and  if  it  had  been  Mr.  Ball,  he  would  have 
whipped  us  half  to  death." 

"We  shouldn't  have  forgot  and  gone 
away  at  that  time  if  Old  Ball  had  been  the 
master,"  said  Bob. 

"That's  just  it,"  said  Jack;  "that's  the 
very  reason  why  we  ought  to  apologize." 

"All  right,"  said  Bob,  "I'll  sign  her," 
and  he  wrote  "Robert  M.  Holliday"  in  big 
letters  at  the  top  of  the  column  intended 
for  the  names.  Jack  put  his  name  under 
Bob's. 

But  when  they  got  to  the  school-house 
it  was  not  so  easy  to  persuade  the  rest. 
At  length,  however,  Johnny  Meline  signed 
it,  and  then  Harry  Weathervane,  and  then 
the  rest,  one  after  another,  with  some 
232 


AN  APOLOGY 

grumbling,  wrote  their  names.  All  sub 
scribed  to  it  excepting  Pewee  and  Ben 
Berry  and  Riley.  They  declared  they 
never  would  sign  it.  They  didn't  want  to 
be  kept  in  at  recess  and  after  school  like 
convicts.  They  didn't  deserve  it. 

"Jack  is  a  soft-headed  fool,"  Riley  said, 
"to  draw  up  such  a  thing  as  that.  I'm 
not  afraid  of  the  master.  I'm  not  going 
to  knuckle  down  to  him,  either." 

Of  course,  Pewee,  as  a  faithful  echo, 
said  just  what  Riley  said,  and  Ben  Berry 
said  what  Riley  and  Pewee  said;  so  that 
the  three  were  quite  unanimous. 

"Well,"  said  Jack,  "then  we'll  have  to 
hand  in  our  petition  without  the  signatures 
of  the  triplets." 

"Don't  you  call  me  a  triplet,"  said 
Pewee;  "I've  got  as  much  sense  as  any  of 
you.  You're  a  soft-headed  triplet  your 
self!" 

233 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

Even  Riley  had  to  join  in  the  laugh 
that  followed  this  blundering  sally  of 
Pewee. 

When  the  master  came  in,  he  seemed 
very  much  troubled.  He  had  heard  what 
had  been  said  about  the  affair  in  the  town. 
The  address  which  Jack  had  written  was 
lying  on  his  desk.  He  took  it  up  and  read 
it,  and  immediately  a  look  of  pleasure  and 
relief  took  the  place  of  the  worried  look 
he  had  brought  to  school  with  him. 

"Boys/*  he  said,  "I  have  received  your 
petition,  and  I  shall  answer  it  by  and  by." 

The  hour  for  recess  came  and  passed. 
The  girls  and  the  very  little  boys  were 
allowed  their  recess,  but  nothing  was  said 
to  the  larger  boys  about  their  going  out. 
Pewee  and  Riley  were  defiant. 

At  length,  when  the  school  was  about  to 
break  up  for  noon,  the  master  put  his  pen, 
ink,  and  other  little  articles  in  the  desk, 
234 


AN  APOLOGY 

and  the  school  grew  hushed  with  expec 
tancy. 

"This  apology/'  said  Mr.  Williams, 
"which  I  see  is  in  John  Dudley's  hand 
writing,  and  which  bears  the  signature  of 
all  but  three  of  those  who  were  guilty  of 
the  offence  yesterday,  is  a  very  manly 
apology,  and  quite  increases  my  respect 
for  those  who  have  signed  it.  I  have  suf 
fered  much  from  your  carelessness  of  yes 
terday,  but  this  apology,  showing,  as  it 
does,  the  manliness  of  my  boys,  has  given 
me  more  pleasure  than  the  offence  gave 
me  pain.  I  ought  to  make  an  apology  to 
you.  I  blamed  you  too  severely  yesterday 
in  accusing  you  of  running  away  intention 
ally.  I  take  all  that  back." 

Here  he  paused  a  moment,  and  looked 
over  the  petition  carefully. 

"William  Riley,  I  don't  see  your  name 
here.    Why  is  that?" 
235 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

"Because  I  didn't  put  it  there." 

Pewee  and  Ben  Berry  both  laughed  at 
this  wit. 
*    "  Why  didn't  you  put  it  there  ?  " 

"Because  I  didn't  want  to." 

"Have  you  any  explanation  to  give  of 
your  conduct  yesterday?" 

"No,  sir;  only  that  I  think  it's  mean 
to  keep  us  in  because  we  forgot  ourselves." 

"Peter  Rose,  have  you  anything  to  say  ? " 

"Just  the  same  as  Will  Riley  said." 

"And  you,  Benjamin?" 

"Oh,  I  don't  care  much,"  said  Ben 
Berry.  "Jack  was  fox,  and  I  ran  after 
him,  and  if  he  hadn't  run  all  over  creation 
and  part  of  Columbia,  I  shouldn't  have 
been  late.  It  isn't  any  fault  of  mine.  I 
think  Jack  ought  to  do  the  staying  in." 

"You  are  about  as  old  a  boy  as  Jack," 
said  the  master.    "I  suppose  Jack  might 
say  that   if  you   and  the  others  hadn't 
236 


AN  APOLOGY 

chased  him,  he  wouldn't  have  run  *  all  over 
creation/  as  you  put  it.  You  and  the 
rest  were  all  guilty  of  a  piece  of  gross 
thoughtlessness.  All  excepting  you  three 
have  apologized  in  the  most  manly  way. 
I  therefore  remove  the  punishment  from 
all  the  others  entirely  hereafter,  deeming 
that  the  loss  of  this  morning's  recess  is 
punishment  enough  for  boys  who  can  be 
so  manly  in  their  acknowledgments.  Peter 
Rose,  William  Riley,  and  Benjamin  Berry 
will  remain  in  school  at  both  recesses  and 
for  a  half-hour  after  school  every  day  for 
three  days — not  only  for  having  forgotten 
their  duty,  but  for  having  refused  to  make 
acknowledgment  or  apology." 

Going  home  that  evening,  half  an  hour 
after  all  the  others  had  been  dismissed,  the 
triplets  put  all  their  griefs  together,  and 
resolved  to  be  avenged  on  Mr.  Williams 
at  the  first  convenient  opportunity. 
237 


CHAPTER  XXV 

KING'S  BASE  AND  A  SPELLING-LESSON 

As  the  three  who  usually  gave  the  most 
trouble  on  the  playground,  as  well  as  in 
school,  were  now  in  detention  at  every 
recess,  the  boys  enjoyed  greatly  their  play 
during  these  three  days. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  they  began  to 
play  that  favorite  game  of  Greenbank, 
which  seems  to  be  unknown  almost  every 
where  else.  It  is  called  "king's  base/' 
and  is  full  of  all  manner  of  complex  hap 
penings,  sudden  surprises,  and  amusing 
results. 

Each  of  the  boys  selected  a  base  or  goal. 

A  row  of  sidewalk  trees  were  favorite  bases. 

There  were  just  as  many  bases  as  boys. 

Some  boy  would  venture  out  from  his  base. 

238 


KING'S  BASE  AND  A  SPELLING-LESSON 

Then  another  would  pursue  him;  a  third 
would  chase  the  two,  and  so  it  would  go, 
the  one  who  left  his  base  latest  having  the 
right  to  catch. 

Just  as  Johnny  Meline  was  about  to 
lay  hold  on  Jack,  Sam  Crashaw,  having 
just  left  his  base,  gave  chase  to  Johnny, 
and  just  as  Sam  thought  he  had  a  good 
chance  to  catch  Johnny,  up  came  Jack, 
fresh  from  having  touched  his  base,  and 
nabbed  Sam.  When  one  has  caught  an 
other,  he  has  a  right  to  return  to  his  base 
with  his  prisoner,  unmolested.  The  pris 
oner  now  becomes  an  active  champion  of 
the  new  base,  and  so  the  game  goes  on 
until  all  the  bases  are  broken  up  but  one. 
Very  often  the  last  boy  on  a  base  succeeds 
in  breaking  up  a  strong  one,  and,  indeed, 
there  is  no  end  to  the  curious  results  at 
tained  in  the  play. 

Jack  had  never  got  on  in  his  studies  as 
239 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

at  this  time.  Mr.  Williams  took  every 
opportunity  to  show  his  liking  for  his 
young  friend,  and  Jack's  quickened  ambi 
tion  soon  put  him  at  the  head  of  his  classes. 
It  was  a  rule  that  the  one  who  stood  at 
the  head  of  the  great  spelling-class  on  Fri 
day  evenings  should  go  to  the  foot  on 
Monday,  and  so  work  his  way  up  again. 
There  was  a  great  strife  between  Sarah 
Weathervane  and  Jack  to  see  which  should 
go  to  the  foot  the  oftenest  during  the  term, 
and  so  win  a  little  prize  that  Mr.  Williams 
had  offered  to  the  best  speller  in  the  school. 
As  neither  of  them  ever  missed  a  word  in 
the  lesson,  they  held  the  head  each  alter 
nate  Friday  evening.  In  this  way  the 
contest  bade  fair  to  be  a  tie.  But  Sarah 
meant  to  win  the  prize  by  fair  means  or 
foul. 

One  Friday  morning  before  school-time, 
the  boys  and  girls  were  talking  about  the 
240 


KING'S  BASE  AND  A  SPELLING-LESSON 

relative  merits  of  the  two  spellers,  Joanna 
maintaining  that  Sarah  was  the  better, 
and  others  that  Jack  could  spell  better 
than  Sarah. 

"Oh!"  said  Sarah  Weathervane,  "Jack 
is  the  best  speller  in  school.  I  study  till 
my  head  aches  to  get  my  lesson,  but  it  is 
all  the  same  to  Jack  whether  he  studies  or 
not.  He  has  a  natural  gift  for  spelling, 
and  he  spends  nearly  all  his  time  on  arith 
metic  and  Latin/' 

This  speech  pleased  Jack  very  much. 
He  had  stood  at  the  head  of  the  class  all 
the  week,  and  spelling  did  seem  to  him 
the  easiest  thing  in  the  world.  That  after 
noon  he  hardly  looked  at  his  lesson.  It 
was  so  nice  to  think  he  could  beat  Sarah 
Weathervane  with  his  left  hand,  so  to  speak. 

When  the  great  spelling-class  was  called, 
he  spelled  the  words  given  to  him,  as  usual, 
and  Sarah  saw  no  chance  to  get  the  coveted 
241 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

opportunity  to  stand  at  the  head,  go  down, 
and  spell  her  way  up  again.  But  the  very 
last  word  given  to  Jack  was  sacrilege,  and, 
not  having  studied  the  lesson,  he  spelled 
it  with  e  in  the  second  syllable  and  /  in  the 
last.  Sarah  gave  the  letters  correctly, 
and  when  Jack  saw  the  smile  of  triumph 
on  her  face,  he  guessed  why  she  had  flat 
tered  him  that  morning.  Hereafter  he 
would  not  depend  on  his  natural  genius  for 
spelling.  A  natural  genius  for  working  is 
the  best  gift. 


242 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

UNCLAIMED  TOP-STRINGS 

WITH  a  sinking  heart,  Jack  often  called 
to  mind  that  this  was  his  last  term  at 
school.  The  little  money  that  his  father 
had  left  was  not  enough  to  warrant  his 
continuing;  he  must  now  do  something 
for  his  own  support.  He  resolved,  there 
fore,  to  make  the  most  of  his  time  under 
Mr.  Williams. 

When  Pewee,  Riley,  and  Ben  Berry  got 
through  with  their  punishment,  they  sought 
some  way  of  revenging  themselves  on  the 
master  for  punishing  them,  and  on  Jack 
for  doing  better  than  they  had  done,  and 
thus  escaping  punishment.  It  was  a  sore 
thing  with  them  that  Jack  had  led  all  the 
school  his  way,  so  that,  instead  of  the 
243 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

whole  herd  following  King  Pewee  and 
Prime  Minister  Riley  into  rebellion,  they 
now  "knuckled  down  to  the  master,"  as 
Riley  called  it,  under  the  lead  of  Jack,  and 
they  even  dared  to  laugh  slyly  at  the  in 
separable  "triplets." 

The  first  aim  of  Pewee  and  company  was 
to  get  the  better  of  the  master.  They 
boasted  to  Jack  and  Bob  that  they  would 
fix  Mr.  Williams  some  time,  and  gave  out 
to  the  other  boys  that  they  knew  where 
the  master  spent  his  evenings,  and  they 
knew  how  to  fix  him. 

When  Jack  heard  of  this,  he  understood 
it.  The  teacher  had  a  habit  of  spending  an 
evening,  now  and  then,  at  Dr.  Lanham's, 
and  the  boys  no  doubt  intended  to  play  a 
prank  on  him  in  going  or  coming.  There 
being  now  no  moonlight,  the  village  streets 
were  very  dark,  and  there  was  every  oppor 
tunity  for  a  trick.  Riley's  father's  house 
244 


UNCLAIMED  TOP-STRINGS 

stood  next  on  the  street  to  Dr.  Lanham's; 
the  lots  were  divided  by  an  alley.  This 
gave  the  triplets  a  good  chance  to  carry 
out  their  designs. 

But  Bob  Holliday  and  Jack,  good  friends 
to  the  teacher,  thought  that  it  would  be 
fun  to  watch  the  conspirators  and  defeat 
them.  So,  when  they  saw  Mr.  Williams 
going  to  Dr.  Lanham's,  they  stationed 
themselves  in  the  dark  alley  on  the  side 
of  the  street  opposite  to  Riley's  and  took 
observations.  Mr.  Williams  had  a  habit 
of  leaving  Dr.  Lanham's  at  exactly  nine 
o'clock,  and  so,  just  before  nine,  the  three 
came  out  of  Riley's  yard,  and  proceeded  in 
the  darkness  to  the  fence  of  Lanham's  door- 
yard. 

Getting  the  trunk  of  one  of  the  large 
shade-trees  between  him  and  the  plotters, 
Jack  crept  up  close  enough  to  guess  what 
they  were  doing  and  to  overhear  their 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

conversation.  Then  he  came  back  to 
Bob. 

"They  are  tying  a  string  across  the  side 
walk  on  Lanham's  side  of  the  alley,  I  be 
lieve/'  whispered  Jack,  "so  as  to  throw 
Mr.  Williams  head  foremost  into  that 
mudhole  at  the  mouth  of  the  alley." 

By  this  time,  the  three  boys  had  finished 
their  arrangements  and  retreated  through 
the  gate  into  the  porch  of  the  Riley  house, 
whence  they  might  keep  a  lookout  for  the 
catastrophe. 

"I'm  going  to  cut  that  string  where  it 
goes  around  the  tree,"  said  Bob,  and  he 
crouched  low  on  the  ground,  got  the  trunk 
of  the  tree  between  him  and  the  Riley 
house,  and  crept  slowly  across  the  street. 

"I'll    capture    the    string,"    said    Jack, 

walking  off  to  the  next  cross-street,  then 

running  around  the  block  until  he  came  to 

the  back  gate  of  Lanham's  yard,  which 

246 


UNCLAIMED  TOP-STRINGS 

he  entered,  running  up  the  walk  to  the 
back  door.  His  knock  was  answered  by 
Mrs.  Lanham. 

"Why,  Jack,  what's  the  matter?"  she 
asked,  seeing  him  at  the  kitchen  door, 
breathless. 

"I  want  to  see  Susan,  please,"  he  said, 
"and  tell  Mr.  Williams  not  to  go  yet  a 
minute/' 

"Here's  a  mystery,"  said  Mrs.  Lanham, 
returning  to  the  sitting-room,  where  the 
teacher  was  just  rising  to  say  good-night. 
"Here's  Jack  Dudley,  at  the  back  door, 
out  of  breath,  asking  for  Susan,  and  wish 
ing  Mr.  Williams  not  to  leave  the  house 
yet." 

Susan  ran  to  the  back  door. 

"Susan,"  said  Jack,  "the  triplets  have 

tied  a  string  from  the  corner  of  your  fence 

to  the  locust-tree,  and  they're  watching 

from  Riley's  porch  to  see  Mr.  Williams  fall 

247 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

into  the  mud-hole.  Bob  is  cutting  the 
string  at  the  tree,  and  I  want  you  to  go 
down  along  the  fence  and  untie  it  and 
bring  it  in.  They  will  not  suspect  you  if 
they  see  you/* 

"I  don't  care  if  they  do,"  said  Susan, 
and  she  glided  out  to  the  cross-fence  which 
ran  along  the  alley,  followed  it  to  the  front 
and  untied  the  string,  fetching  it  back 
with  her.  When  she  got  back  to  the 
kitchen  door  she  heard  Jack  closing  the 
alley  gate.  He  had  run  off  to  join  Bob, 
leaving  the  string  in  Susan's  hands. 

Dr.  Lanham  and  the  master  had  a  good 
laugh  over  the  captured  string,  which  was 
made  of  Pewee's  and  Riley's  top-strings, 
tied  together. 

The  triplets  did  not  see  Susan  go  to  the 
fence.  They  were  too  intent  on  what  was 
to  happen  to  Mr.  Williams.  When,  at 
length,  he  came  along  safely  through  the 
darkness,  they  were  bewildered. 
248 


UNCLAIMED  TOP-STRINGS 

"You  didn't  tie  that  string  well  in  the 
middle,"  growled  Pewee  at  Riley. 

"Yes,  I  did,"  said  Riley.  "He  must 
have  stepped  over." 

"Step  over  a  string  a  foot  high,  when  he 
didn't  know  it  was  there?"  said  Pewee. 

"Let's  go  and  get  the  string,"  said  Ben 
Berry. 

So  out  of  the  gate  they  sallied,  and 
quickly  reached  the  place  where  the  string 
ought  to  have  been. 

"I  can't  find  this  end,"  whispered  Pewee 
by  the  fence. 

„  "The  string's  gone!"  broke  out  Riley, 
after  feeling  up  and  down  the  tree  for  some 
half  a  minute. 

What  could  have  become  of  it?  They 
had  been  so  near  the  sidewalk  all  the  time 
that  no  one  could  have  passed  without 
their  seeing  him. 

The  next  day,  at  noon-time,  when  Susan 
Lanham  brought  out  her  lunch,   it  was 
249 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

tied  with  Pewee's  new  top-string, — the 
best  one  in  the  school. 

"That's  a  very  nice  string,"  said  Susan. 

"It's  just  like  Pewee's  top-string,"  cried 
Harry  Weathervane. 

"Is  it  yours,  Pewee?"  said  Susan,  in 
her  sweetest  tones. 

"No,"  said  the  king,  with  his  head  down; 
"mine's  at  home." 

"I  found  this  one,  last  night,"  said 
Susan. 

And  all  the  school  knew  that  she  was 
tormenting  Pewee,  although  they  could 
not  guess  how  she  had  got  his  top-string. 
After  a  while,  she  made  a  dive  into  her 
pocket,  and  brought  out  another  string. 

"Oh,"  cried  Johnny  Meline,  "where  did 
you  get  that?" 

"I  found  it." 

"That's  Will  Riley's  top-string,"  said 
Johnny.  "It  was  mine.  He  cheated  me 
250 


UNCLAIMED  TOP-STRINGS 

out  of  it  by  trading  an  old  top  that  wouldn't 
spin." 

"That's  the  way  you  get  your  top- 
strings,  is  it,  Will?  Is  this  yours?"  asked 
the  tormenting  Susan. 

"No,  it  isn't." 

"Of  course  it  isn't  yours.  You  don't  tie 
top-strings  across  the  sidewalk  at  night. 
You're  a  gentleman,  you  are!  Come, 
Johnny,  this  string  doesn't  belong  to  any 
body;  I'll  trade  with  you  for  that  old  top 
that  Will  gave  you  for  a  good  string.  I 
want  something  to  remember  honest  Will 
Riley  by." 

Johnny  gladly  pocketed  the  string,  and 
Susan  carried  off  the  shabby  top,  to  the 
great  amusement  of  the  school,  who  now 
began  to  understand  how  she  had  come 
by  the  two  top-strings. 


251 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

THE  LAST  DAY  OF  SCHOOL,  AND  THE  LAST 
CHAPTER  OF  THE  STORY 

IT  was  the  last  day  of  the  spring  term 
of  school.  With  Jack  this  meant  the  end 
of  his  opportunity  for  going  to  school. 
What  he  should  learn  hereafter  he  must 
learn  by  himself.  The  money  was  nearly 
out,  and  he  must  go  to  work. 

The  last  day  of  schod  meant  also  the  ex 
piration  of  the  master's  authority.  What 
ever  evil  was  done  after  school-hours  on 
the  last  day  was  none  of  his  business.  All 
who  had  grudges  carried  them  forward  to 
that  day,  for  thus  they  could  revenge 
themselves  without  being  called  to  account 
by  the  master  the  next  day.  The  bst 
day  of  school  had  no  to-morrow  to  be 
252 


THE  LAST  DAY  OF  SCHOOL 

afraid  of.  Hence,  Pewee  and  his  friends 
proposed  to  square  accounts  on  the  la?T, 
day  of  school  with  Jack  Dudley,  whom 
they  hated  for  being  the  best  scholar,  and 
for  having  outwitted  them  more  than  once. 

It  was  on  the  first  day  of  June  that  the 
school  ended,  and  Mr.  Williams  bade  his 
pupils  good-bye.  The  warm  sun  had  by 
this  time  brought  the  waters  of  the  Ohio 
to  a  leir.-purature  that  made  bathing  pleas 
ant,  and  when  the  school  closed,  all  the 
boys,  delighted  with  liberty,  rushed  to  the 
river  for  a  good  swim  together.  In  that 
genial  climate  one  can  remain  in  the  water 
for  hours  at  a  time,  and  boys  become 
swimmers  at  an  early  age. 

Just  below  the  village  a  raft  was  moored, 
and  from  this  the  youthful  swimmers  were 
soon  diving  into  the  deep  water  like  frogs. 
Every  boy  who  could  perform  any  feat  of 
agility  displayed  it.  One  would  turn  a 
253 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

somersault  in  the  water,  and  then  dive 
-from  one  side  of  the  raft  to  another,  one 
could  float,  and  another  swim  on  his  back, 
while  a  third  was  learning  to  tread  water. 
Some  were  fond  of  diving  toes  downward, 
others  took  headers.  "The  little  fellows" 
who  could  not  swim  kept  on  the  inside  of 
the  great  raft  and  paddled  about  with  the 
aid  of  slabs  used  for  floats.  Jack,  who  had 
lived  for  years  on  the  banks  of  the  Wildcat, 
could  swim  and  dive  like  a  musquash. 

Mr.  Williams,  the  teacher,  felt  lonesome 
at  saying  good-bye  to  his  school;  and  to 
keep  the  boys  company  as  long  as  possible, 
he  strolled  down  to  the  bank  and  sat  on 
the  grass  watching  the  bathers  below  him, 
plunging  and  paddling  in  all  the  spontane 
ous  happiness  of  young  life. 

Riley  and  Pewee — conspirators  to  the 
last — had  their  plans  arranged.  When  Jack 
should  get  his  clothes  on,  they  intended  to 
254 


THE  LAST  DAY  OF  SCHOOL 

pitch  him  off  the  raft  for  a  good  wetting, 
and  thus  gratify  their  long-hoarded  jeal 
ousy,  and  get  an  offset  to  the  standing  joke 
about  doughfaces  and  ghosts  which  the 
town  had  at  their  expense.  Ben  Berry, 
who  was  their  confidant,  thought  this  a 
capital  plan. 

When  at  length  Jack  had  enjoyed  the 
water  enough,  he  came  out  and  was  about 
to  begin  dressing.  Pewee  and  Riley  were 
close  at  hand,  already  dressed,  and  pre 
pared  to  give  Jack  a  farewell  ducking. 

But  just  at  that  moment  there  came 
from  the  other  end  of  the  raft,  and  from 
the  spectators  on  the  bank,  a  wild,  con 
fused  cry,  and  all  turned  to  hearken. 
Harry  Weathervane's  younger  brother, 
whose  name  was  Andrew  Jackson,  and  who 
could  not  swim,  in  dressing,  had  stepped 
too  far  backward  and  gone  off  the  raft.  He 
uttered  a  despairing  and  terrified  scream, 
255 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

struck  out  wildly  and  blindly,  and  went 
down. 

All  up  and  down  the  raft  and  up  and 
down  the  bank  there  went  up  a  cry:  "Andy 
is  drowning !"  while  everybody  looked  for 
somebody  else  to  save  him. 

The  school-master  was  sitting  on  the 
bank,  and  saw  the  accident.  He  quickly 
slipped  off  his  boots,  but  then  he  stopped, 
for  Jack  had  already  started  on  a  splendid 
run  down  that  long  raft.  The  confused 
and  terrified  boys  made  a  path  for  him 
quickly,  as  he  came  on  at  more  than  the 
tremendous  speed  he  had  always  shown  in 
games.  He  did  not  stop  to  leap,  but  ran 
full  tilt  off  the  raft,  falling  upon  the  drown 
ing  boy  and  carrying  him  completely  under 
water  with  him.  Nobody  breathed  during 
the  two  seconds  that  Jack,  under  water, 
struggled  to  get  a  good  hold  on  Andy  and 
to  keep  Andy  from  disabling  him  by  his 
blrid  grappling  of  Jack's  limbs. 
256 


THE  LAST  DAY  OF  SCHOOL 

When  at  length  Jack's  head  came  above 
water,  there  was  an  audible  sigh  of  relief 
from  all  the  on-lookers.  But  the  danger 
was  not  over. 

"Let  go  of  my  arms,  Andy !"  cried  Jack. 
"You'll  drown  us  both  if  you  hold  on 
that  way.  If  you  don't  let  go  I'll  strike 
you." 

Jack  knew  that  it  was  sometimes  neces 
sary  to  stun  a  drowning  person  before  you 
could  save  him,  where  he  persisted  in 
clutching  his  deliverer.  But  poor  fright 
ened  Andy  let  go  of  Jack's  arms  at  last. 
Jack  was  already  exhausted  with  swim 
ming,  and  he  had  great  difficulty  in  drag 
ging  the  little  fellow  to  the  raft,  where 
Will  Riley  and  Pewee  Rose  pulled  him 
out  of  the  water. 

But  now,  while  all  were  giving  attention 

to  the  rescued  Andy,  there  occurred  with 

Jack  one  of  those  events  which  people  call 

a  cramp,    1  do  not  know  what  to  call  it, 

257 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

but  it  is  not  a  cramp.  It  is  a  kind  of  col 
lapse — a  sudden  exhaustion  that  may  come 
to  the  best  of  swimmers.  The  heart  in 
sists  on  resting,  the  consciousness  grows 
dim,  the  will-power  flags,  and  the  strong 
swimmer  sinks. 

Nobody  was  regarding  Jack,  who  first 
found  himself  unable  to  make  even  an 
effort  to  climb  on  the  raft;  then  his  hold 
on  its  edge  relaxed,  and  he  slowly  sank  out 
of  sight.  Pewee  saw  his  sinking  condition 
first,  and  cried  out,  as  did  Riley  and  all 
the  rest,  doing  nothing  to  save  Jack,  but 
running  up  and  down  the  raft  in  a  vain 
search  for  a  rope  or  a  pole. 

The  school-master,  having  seen  that 
Andy  was  brought  out  little  worse  for  his 
fright  and  the  water  he  had  swallowed, 
was  about  to  put  on  his  boots  when  this 
new  alarm  attracted  his  attention  to  Jack 
Dudley.  Instantly  he  threw  off  his  coat 
258 


THE  LAST  DAY  OF   SCHOOL 

and  was  bounding  down  the  steep  bank, 
along  the  plank  to  the  raft,  and  then  along 
the  raft  to  where  Jack  had  sunk  entirely 
out  of  sight.  Mr.  Williams  leaped  head 
first  into  the  water  and  made  what  the 
boys  afterward  called  a  splendid  dive. 
Once  under  water  he  opened  his  eyes  and 
looked  about  for  Jack. 

At  last  he  came  up,  drawing  after  him 
the  unconscious  and  apparently  lifeless 
form  of  Jack,  who  was  taken  from  the 
water  by  the  boys.  The  teacher  des 
patched  two  boys  to  bring  Dr.  Lanham, 
while  he  set  himself  to  restore  conscious 
ness  by  producing  artificial  breathing.  It 
was  some  time  after  Dr.  Lanham's  arrival 
that  Jack  fully  regained  his  consciousness, 
when  he  was  carried  home  by  the  strong 
arms  of  Bob  Holliday,  Will  Riley,  and 
Pewee,  in  turn. 

And  here  I  must  do  the  last  two  boys 
259 


THE  HOOSIER  SCHOOL-BOY 

the  justice  to  say  that  they  called  to  in 
quire  after  Jack  every  day  during  the  ill 
ness  that  followed,  and  the  old  animosity 
to  Jack  was  never  afterward  revived  by 
Pewee  and  his  friends. 

On  the  evening  after  this  accident  and 
these  rescues,  Dr.  Lanham  said  to  Mrs. 
Lanham  and  Susan  and  Mr.  Williams,  who 
happened  to  be  there  again,  that  a  boy 
was  wanted  in  the  new  drug-store  in  the 
village,  to  learn  the  business,  and  to  sleep 
in  the  back  room,  so  as  to  attend  night- 
calls.  Dr.  Lanham  did  not  know  why  this 
Jack  Dudley  wouldn't  be  just  the  boy. 

Susan,  for  her  part,  was  very  sure  he 
would  be;  and  Mr.  Williams  agreed  with 
Susan,  as,  indeed,  he  generally  did. 

Dr.  Lanham  thought  that  Jack  might  be 

allowed  to  attend  school  in  the  daytime  in 

the  winter  season,  and  if  the  boy  had  as 

good  stuff  in  him  as  he  seemed  to  have, 

260 


THE  LAST  DAY  OF  SCHOOL 

there  was  no  reason  why  he  shouldn't 
come  to  something  some  day. 

"Come  to  something!"  said  Susan, 
"Come  to  something!  Why,  he'll  make 
one  of  the  best  doctors  in  the  country  yet." 

And  again  Mr.  Williams  entirely  agreed 
with  Susan,  Jack  Dudley  was  sure  to  go 
up  to  the  head  of  the  class. 

Jack  got  the  place,  and  I  doubt  not  ful 
filled  the  hope  of  his  friends.  I  know  this, 
at  least,  that  when  a  year  or  so  later  his 
good  friend  and  teacher,  Mr.  Williams, 
was  married  to  his  good  and  stanch  friend, 
Susan  Lanham,  Jack's  was  one  of  the  hap 
piest  faces  at  the  wedding. 


261 


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